A Raavan who steals the show, a Sita who makes the great wrestler Khali look feminine and a Ram-Laxman duo who look like they'd be more at home with Snow White than Sita. These are all the elements for a fun Ramleela gone seriously wrong. The first thing you should know about any Ramleela performed in a small town, says the announcer (Ashok Sharma) when he steps onto the stage, is that it doesn't matter how, where or why it is performed. The point is that it has to be performed at any cost.
The show is a play within a play and takes place in the small town of Jigarpur where an eager crowd awaits their annual all-male Ramleela. Unfortunately, they're made to wait in the beginning and in between acts. No audience member likes that. But things go awry when Raavan (Gagan Riar) holds the organizer to ransom by refusing to die on stage unless he get a pay raise.
The show is packed with actors who automatically begin to overact when they go on 'stage'. But while they all do a decent job, it is Gagan Riar as Raavan who steals the show hook, line and sinker with his Punjabi accent, a chain that reads 'Virus' and a red Nike sweatband.
The play's dialogues add to the charm. One of the wittiest ones comes from the announcer, requesting the audience not to throw vegetables like tomatoes and okra. "The price of vegetables has increased so much lately," he tells his angry mob. "Here, put it in this basket here."
The song and dance sequences are hilarious. It's one thing to see men dressed as women and attempting to act feminine, but another altogether when men, who play the supporting cast come out and prance like item numbers. It doesn't make them any less feminine, but it just goes to show the lengths actors go to get the laughs.
But if there was one serious downfall to the play, it was the disorganized chaos of switching between the play, and the play within the play. Actors shouting over each other, lines lost when an actor playing an audience member overreacts, and switching between reality and mythology made the whole production seem like a game that children play and force their parents to watch.
Yatri's Raavanleela, directed by Om Katare has a good thing going for it. Now, if only it had been backed by better organization and a strong, clear script rather than a string of witty one liners, we might actually have had a winner.
