The Industrial Theatre Co presents a fresh, new take on Girish Karnad's HAYAVADANA, which takes off from Thomas Mann's reworking of an age-old Sanskrit tale in The Transposed Heads. The Industrial Theatre Co's production with its own set of distinct embellishments, seeks to give the tale, already possessing of much contemporary resonance, the quality of a latter-day fable. It does so by employing a zestful ensemble of young actors who speak a modern dialect while still adhering closely to the original text. The proscenium stage at the K R Cama Hall is kicked behind, and the auditorium floor itself becomes a kind of wrestling pit that seems to be the perfect setting for the mind games and sexual power play that is to take centrestage between Padmini (Preetika Chawla) and the two men in her life-the wrestler-type Kapil (Vivek Gomber) who embodies brawn with all its superficial lustre, and the tender-wristed poet of peerless faculty but suspect judgement, Devdutt (Prashant Prakash).
With cinematographer Pushan Kripalani and light-designer Arghya Lahiri at the helm of affairs, there is certainly a distinct aesthetic sensibility on display which creates that illusion of opulence even if the set-design by Dhanendra Kawade, is actually a spartan affair with several dhurries on all sides marking out a square, over which hang preening Chinese lanterns. The actual light fixtures are hoisted on the banisters above, and contribute to what is a rather well-lit production, which each subtle shift of mood illuminated with as much care as more emphatic changes of time or season or location.
As the play begins, the actors animatedly engage in a display of bonhomie as they flit around like party-hosts. Prithvi Theatre's resident flautist, Suhas Joshi, provides musical accompaniment (along with Rahul Sharma) and lends the play some of his trademark gravitas, while also aiding the idea that this is a performance within another as the actors themselves sometimes fall to the side and sit in as live spectators to the going-ons, barely concealing their wonderment at the Pandora's box of mortal follies that's supposedly opening up before them. All of this does seem to be rather stage-managed to the point that the actors almost seem to be intruding into their own space. This is where the production acquires the slightest sheen of artifice. It would all be very well if the actual audience, seated all around in stodgy office-chairs, were to imbibe the same enthusiasm for the unfolding themes, and that is something that isn't immediately clear.
The supporting players (Dilnaz Irani, Neil Bhoopalam, and Abhishek Saha) certainly add color and gaiety to the play. They explain the proceedings-a narrator is something contemporary theatre can hardly do without-and also divvy up the bit parts amongst themselves. A sequence at a temple where Padmini is disconsolate given that both her paramours have beheaded themselves, the irrepressible Ms Irani descends upon us as the Goddess Kali in a sensational gothic avatar, with all the regal swagger and pithy humour that entails, sticking her tongue out with rib-tickling panache. In another scene, where Kapil scours an unfamiliar bazaar to locate Padmini's home, the trio spring bamboo mats upon us like doors to houses, each hiding a speciality act, like a squawking parakeet or a talking chimpanzee. Mr Saha, particularly, has a penchant for throwing an echoing voice almost with the gumption of a ventriloquist, and the audience laps up each falling register with much mirth.
However it is left to the three principal characters to carry on their shoulders the over-arching themes of the play. Given the pedigree of the performers, it may seem that they are up to the task. The central dilemma of the play concerns itself with Padmini having to choose between the polar identities represented by the two men. Married to Devdutt, she yearns for Kapil. When the Goddess Kali comes to her rescue, she can bring the two beheaded men to life but instead of giving each body its rightful head, she mixes things up. The choices that Padmini make casts her as a woman who disingenuously uses a moral argument to give in to her deepest desires, almost a Sanskrit-era expression of feminine sexuality, if you will. For all of Devdutt's mental acuity which she claims to be of prime importance, it's the odour of Kapil's body that enthuses her.
The last couple of years has seen the blossoming of Ms Chawla as a proficient actress in her own right, and she is technically able to take on this material and perform it adequately but only just. While the premise is played out in comedic fashion, Ms Chawla's persona of a child-woman with a burgeoning sensuality doesn't take her character all the way. She doesn't attempt to access the deeper recesses of Padmini's psyche. Mr Gomber's Kapil, however, benefits from his rawness as a performer. His gauche appeal and full-on enthusiasm makes him a full-hearted presence on stage; although he doesn't quite inhabit Devdutt's persona quite as invincibly, when the heads are transposed.
With the scales tipping in favor of superficial allure or the primacy of carnal bonding rather than a meeting of minds, Mr Prakash as Devdutt props up the action in a thankless part that grows more unsympathetic as the play progresses, and coming across more than a victim than an archetypal presence in his own right. That is a pity, because there is an enduring power to Karnad's text, that provokes you to think, but the trio of actors, sincere perfomers that they are, don't quite create the balance that would give weight to either side of the eternal stand-off.
Born out of an argument Mr Karnad had with B V Karanth about the use of masks and music in Indian theatre, this production's use of masks only extends itself to the figurative, with the talking horse (Mr Saha with his head framed in wiring shaped like a horse's head) amounting to little more than a non-sequitur. While HAYAVADANA may seem superficial to a fault, there is still a lot of vitality to this production that makes it stand out in a theatre-scene that sometimes lacks vision, and doesn't quite harness the power of innovative story-telling in the manner this play does. It remains an enjoyable evening at the theatre, and a perfect outing for the festive season.
*Vikram Phukan runs Stage Impressions, a theatre appreciation website.
