No personal preference: Individual’s identity hostage to socially imposed markers

A scene from the play ‘Nangey’.
A scene from the play ‘Nangey’.

Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, Feb 15: Present-ation of Hindi play ‘Nangey’ by Unison Cultural Troupe marked the third day of ongoing Abhinavagupta Natyama-hostav, being organized by Amateur Theatre group, at the Abhinav Theatre, here today.
One the few plays written by State’s playwrights centering upon Theatre of Absurd, Moti Lal Kemmu’s play ‘Nangey’ highlighted how notwithstanding individual’s identity preference it were externally imposed markers such as clothes, education, religion, ethnicity et al, that only remain the socially recognized norms.
Directed by young Sandeep Verma, the plot revolves around one Rati Raman who wrapped only in towel is brought to police station as a without ticket traveler. His story that he is an educated, unemployed man and while he as per old habit was sleeping without clothes in the train, someone stole his bag containing clothes, ticket and certificates and the towel was given to him by a young female co-traveler to cover his nakedness – is not believed.
Confined in the police station, Rati Raman resorts to repetitive, meaningless actions; babbles in dialogues full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense-for which the Inspector takes him to be a crazy person. To chaste him, the policemen show him the fate of a painter languishing in a solitary cell. Rati Ram’s is set free next morning after Chetna comes to police station with his bag and ticket.
In today’s performance young actors successfully enacted the otherwise complex play high on symbolic content. Vivek Sangotra as Rati Raman was able to bring forth the anguish of an individual caught up in a hopeless situation, Sunil Sharma as Inspector, Ankit Sharma as Qaidi and Shilakha Sharma as Chetna, also gave a good performances. Other members of cast were Mohit Mehra as Munshi, Tovin Kumar and Love Anand as Sipahis and Mohit Chib as Doctor.
One of the highlight of  today’s presentation was the mostly indirect but aesthetically designed stage lighting which successfully followed shifting emphasis from one stage area to another and also accentuated the overall expressiveness of the scenes.
Tomorrow, Nav Durga Kala Kendra will present Yogesh Tripathi’s Keshav Leela Ram Rangila under the direction of Aditya Bhanu.

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