Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, Aug 13: Registering his firm arrival on Jammu theatre firmament, Roheet Verma, the young theatre director and writer, came out with an excellent directorial debut performance of the play ‘Hamid’, at the Abhinav Theatre, here today.
Announcing as a clarion call his conviction to pursue theatre as a creative art rather than a hackneyed set of formulae, Roheet Verma’s todays play was an innovative interpretation in Hindustani of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Structured as a musical, the play design while drawing heavily on elements drawn from native Indian performing art forms, also gave an Indian and local context to ‘classical tragedy’, through clever opening sequence of Sufi ethos through poetry of Mian Mohammad Baksh and Egyptian Sufi dance movement.
The stage marked with the live musicians lined up in the background and two diagonal platforms on the right and left corners, and the actors moving in and out of respective roles and joining the band of musicians, gave a folk like ambiance to the show which was conspicuous for minimal use of light-offs for the change of scenes.
Designed and led Roheet Verma as the lead singer, the live music songs and score proved to the soul of the play which not only successfully punctuated the various sequences, scenes, but also inundated the audience in myriad emotions.
The actors who got standing ovation included Tovin Kumar as Faqir/King/Nasir, Manoj Bhat as Nasir, Dr Payal Arora as Nisar, Sandeep Thakur as Hamid, Hempreeet Kaur as Chhota Hamid, Shubham Singh as Moin, Aashima Dutta as Katiba, Tarun Charak as Khushid/Ashq, Samdish Kumar as Ashfaaq, Abhishake Sharma as Raza. Other members of the cast who also gave good performance were Anjali Sharma, Suneedhi Sharma and Sakhshi Bhat.
The singers were Roheet Verma, Hempreet and Tovin Kumar who won hearts for his soulful rendering of Sufi poetry. Lights were by Pankaj, sound by Lokesh, set by Ankit Sharma, costumes by Sakshi Bhat, choreography by Hempreeet kaur and Sakshi Bhat, rhythm by Nitish Dogra. The play’s assistant directors were Suneedhi Sharma and Abhishake Sharma.
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