This week I had a chance to go and see Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in an absolute new fusion way, by Mumbai based Pravah Theatre Laboratory. Director Noraj Kabi had picked up the two art forms that would have existed at the time Hamlet happened and try to present a confluence of the three art forms viz Dhrupad, which is said to be the origin of Indian Classical music; Yakshagana, a folk art form of dance drama, prevalent in South India, and the theatre itself. Every character has two representations and there was a good mix of English, Hindi and Kannada dialogues. To quote from the Director’s Notes ‘There are two sequences in the play where two scenes in different spaces happen at the same time. Such is life and so is the theatre.’
It was a good experience, to see three art forms coming together and the format definitely was fresh. And the people performing the Dhrupad and Yakshagana were experts in their arts, and it came out in their performance. Actors sounded a bit amateur. Most dialogues coming out most of the times sounded like they want to complete the dialogues fast. No doubt the dialogues were long and difficult, specially the ones in Hindi, as that kind of Hindi is hardly spoken (I wonder if it is understood) these days. But still the expression of those dialogues could have been a boy better.
A good effort…the show is still on at Rangashankara till end of this week, in case you want to catch up.
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