Bikhre Bimb - hindi drama review : www.MumbaiTheatreGuide.com

Direction :
Starring :

Girish Karnad & K. M Chaitanya
Arundhati Nag

Deepa Punjani

It was quite an experience to see the Bangalore based Ranga Shankara�s production of Girish Karnad�s BIKHRE BIMB which recently played to full houses in Mumbai. For starters, Arundhati Nag the sole actor of the play delivered a superlative performance and brought to Padmavati Rao�s Hindi translation of the play from the Kannada original (ODAKALU BIMBA), a readily identifiable and an unforced idiom. In her portrayal of a writer who has achieved overnight fame and wealth, she taps deep intp her actor�s resources to bring to life a narrative that is at once personal and public.

As against his earlier and critically acclaimed oveure like TUGHLAQ, HAYAVADNA and NAGA-MANDALA which draw heavily from history, mythology and folklore, Karnad�s latest play makes use of modern-day technology to explore its subject. While the use of technology in the form of multi-media on the stage has often come under negative criticism in India, it would be unfair to simply debunk its potential. Overlooking facile arguments like �theatre is not theatre if it uses technology�, it nevertheless is necessary to examine how a particular play has gained from its overt use on the stage. Karnad�s play in that sense throws up a few gratifying answers, if not questions concerning technology and the theatre.

While on the one hand technology is naturally cohesive with the script of the play (the action enfolds in a TV station), it also simultaneously offers a very imaginative perception of its writer-character�s self. The tele-image of the character in the play is heightened to that of a co-actor�s whose job is to play a cajoling but firm interrogator. Call her the writer�s alter-ego or one of those many �scattered self- images� that live up to the play�s title. Technology in this instance is therefore no longer a via-media but a living character who lends the sub-text of the unconscious to the play. Given the very clever plot, technology assumes the elevated status as that of a character�s. The device has become the play.

Like all gifted playwrights Karnad displays an intutive understanding of character and plot. To this faculty he brings his experience and his knowledge of the world. So while we are engrossed with the unravelling of the writer�s self and image that leads to a startling but fitting end (although some viewers found the end to be predictable), we are also made to �playfully� counter issues such as the uncomfortable relationship that Indian English writers share with their regional counterparts.

As we are sucked into the vortex of a very palpable menage-a-trois, we are also marvelling at Karnad�s ability to deal with the language that is part of the character�s socio-cultural landscape. The bit on the history of the image and the unconscious from Narcissus to Jacques Lakan is particularly on the spot. Again the frailties of theory based exams are sarcastically revealed in the words: �Write a short history of English Literature from Shakespeare to Rushdie in 500 words!�

It is surprising to learn that the play is Karnad�s first directorial venture in the theatre. He has co-directed it with M.M. Chaitanya to whom he is grateful for harnessing the technolgical aspect of the play. The set design creates a fairly good impression of a TV station and the lights too are suitably used. Sure, proponents of a �poor theatre� may perhaps do well to argue the need for the multiple television sets in the background or an interpreter of the play may even feel that the tele-image of the character is but the character�s conscience. Why then go to such lengths of emphasizing it in expensive film?

While these are not entirely invalid observations given the ingenuity of the plot that uses technology to its supreme advantage, there is no doubt that in the context of the play the real itself begins to appear like a �cultivated� image/s. In fact towards the end the line blurs between what is the real and the cultivated self/ves. And no where probably do we see this so manifestly as in visual media that is technology based. I haven�t on purpose revealed much of the play but suffice it to say that it has all the essential ingredients that make a fine theatre experience. It is unlikely that you will forget it in a hurry.

*The writer is Editor of this site, a theatre critic and an academic keenly interested in Theatre and Performance Studies.

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