Bid farewellto this play

Farewell, a multilingual play, was staged at Lamakaan by the Samahaara, on Sunday evening. The premise of the play is that engineering undergrads on their farewell are asked to carry out one last activity before heading off in different directions - the activity being writing their own obituary. The realisation of what they do in life defines them and the way they want to be remembered is what makes up the rest of the play.

The play starts off with a guy trying to pay a prostitute, but falls in a trap set by her. The scene fades out. There are students dancing to “Chikni Chameli” and there is a brawl between the students in the second scene. It fades out quickly, hampering the viewer’s understanding of what is happening on the stage. The same is the case with the remaining scenes. The benefit of blackout was perhaps misunderstood by the director as it was excessively used, leaving the audience’s plot-discerning abilities stand to test.

The important thing in a play is that an actor should never show his back to the audience, but the director missed out on this aspect as there were a few scenes where the actors were unaware about their position. A few were just idle, not paying heed to the happenings on stage.

Directed by Ratna Shekhar Reddy, the play depicted the incidents that take place between students. The abusive language was not necessary and could have been toned down. The actors in the play were all trained in a workshop conducted by the theatre group. The office boy’s character particularly stood out from the rest.

While the performances were quite entertaining, the impact of the play was marred by the direction. The whole plot being centered on engineering students, the technical jargon goes over the audience’s head. The music also wasn’t up to the mark, as in some scenes it made the actors’ dialogues seem underwhelming. At the end, the aptness of the play’s title stands to be questioned.

Despite its many flaws, the play was well-intentioned. If the director could have squeezed out a little more effort from the actors and tweaked the script here and there, the play would have been a good watch.

By:Chaand Ahmed