Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, Nov 25: Completely rooted in Indian ethos, a highly engaging performance of Rajneesh Gupta’s play ‘Tandav’, was staged by Viraj Kala Kendra on the day-12 of the ongoing Annual Theatre Festival, at the Abhinav Theatre, here today.
Written and directed by young and talented Rajneesh Gupta, ‘Tandav’, the play in Hindi verse, made its mark as a well-written new and significant script that woven around a popular historical tale, successfully reiterated the age-old spiritual and aesthetical heritage/values for the benefit both for society and theatre.
Aptly put as a journey from ‘bhog’ to yoga’, the play revolves around one Madhav, a ‘vanvasi’ deeply entrenched in nature. After a chance meeting with Mrignaini, a young dancer, he gets attracted to her and offers to marry her. The dancer, teasing him says if he was to become a better dancer than her, she will marry him. Madhav masters the difficult ‘Rudra Tandav’ after seven years of hard practice and surprises Mrignayani with his expertise. But, the transformation of Mrignayani to a ‘nagar badhu’, shocks Madhav who becomes a ‘sanyasi’. Heart-broken Mrignaini also follows suit.
The sincerity and dedication of the team of young amateur actors supported by months of rehearsals, was visible the way actors delivered free flowing poetic lines and danced with élan the difficult dance sequences, and above all the emotions that cascading as a well-balanced symphony informed today’s presentation.
The impressive acting by duo of Balwinder Singh as Madhav and Meera Tapasavi as Mrignaini came out as a piece de résistance of today’s play. Exhibiting versatility in speech and dance, both actors played as complementary to each other, thus creating a synchronization that led to a kind of ‘chamatkar’, and consummation of ‘rasa’.
Other actors who also gave good performance were Rajni Bhatti as Mother, Pawan Verma as Gurudev/Dandhorchi, Saras Bharti as Hemvati, Ankush Bhasin as Rishab, Sudesh Thakur as Raja, Tarun and Charak as Kunwar.
In the backstage support, the credit for notable choreography must go to choreographers Ankush Bhasin and Romika and set by Jagpal Singh Bandral. Song composed by Ravi Sharma, dholak by Vijay Kumar, Santoor by Rohit Sharma, lights by Rahul Singh, make-up by Dr. Kamal Sharma, costumes by Madhu Gupta and props by Raj Bharti.
Tomorrow, Vikram Sharma’s Padaav will be staged by Society for Environment & Modern art.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
