Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, Feb 11: ‘Chauthi Cigarette’, presented as tenth play of the ongoing international theatre festival, by Delhi’s Rangsaaz Group, at Abhinav Theatre, here today, successfully brought out the proverbial tussle between the Goddess Saraswati and Lakshmi as well as the delusion of fulfillment faced by our individuals especially the middle class.
Awarded the very prestigious Mohan Rakesh award 2019, the Hindi play written by Yogesh Tripathy and directed by Dr. Danish Iqbal, revolves around the confrontation between a 60 years old writer who wants to be rich and a businessman desperate to be acknowledged as a great writer. Both have been college mates. The rich man buys writer’s manuscripts in lieu of money, gets them published in his own name by an internationally publisher, and get famous as a writer. Despite achieving respective ambitions, both struggle with their conscience and end up feeling utterly unhappy and morally insecure.
Today’s was a neat and taut production in which audience enjoyed the excellent display of realistic acting by seasoned actors who enlivened their respective characters. Sunder Lal Chhabra as writer and Vipin Bhardwaj as the rich man, skillfully brought out the psychological dilemmas and tension of/ between the two main characters. Nandini Bannerjee as the poor writer’s poor also gave good performance.
Tomorrow, as the penultimate performance of NIFT 2020, Manch Rangmanch from Amritsar, will present Punjabi play Loona under the direction of Kewal Dhaliwal.
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