Bringing home the dream!

Fu bai fu, fugadi fu

Dam-laas ka'ay majhya Govinda tu,

Re majhya Govinda tu?

- the character Nick Bottom, from A Midsummer Night's Dream,

by William Shakespeare.

Unconceivable, but true, I’ve just returned after watching a Shakespearean play being performed not just in English, but also in Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Sanskrit, Sinhalese and Tamil. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Tim Supple and performed by a couple of dozen artists from all over India and Sri Lanka. It was a dance-music-martial art do, one heck of a production! The play was divided in two acts, the first act, in which Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius go round and round along the lines of the cupid’s goof-ups, and the second act, in which things fall in place and everyone lives happily ever after.

The play was rich with cultural stuffings from across India, with traditional and contemporary dances as well as a bit of a presentation of kallaripayatt, the martial art from Kerala. Dialogues were spoken in a host of languages that I just mentioned, but even though I didn’t literally understand the parts in Sinhalese and Tamil, I never lost the thread because the actors adeptly expressed just about everything. The dance and martial art performances were superb with amazing precision in coordinating every step. The ambience on-stage was quite unusual with ladders and ropes hanging on the stage, with actors going up and down all through. Besides, there were colourful drapes and the actors’ costumes from rich robes to torn rags.

Tim Supple has managed to take a comic pull at the original Shakespearean drama without climbing any rung lower, and brought in passion and rib-tickling fluidity in the sequence of events. The jumble of all the languages worked toward creating a complete dream. The part that I liked the most was the way the play within the play shaped up – the romance of Pyramus and Thisbe, and Nick Bottom’s character played by Joy Fernandes was the most entertaining -- not that other actors didn’t entertain me. No matter how much I write, I’m never going to be able to describe the experience, for it was like living through a dream. A never-before experience, I’m going to do an encore, whenever I get to lay my hands on this one again!

Something to check out: a good description of the play is here – the blog of Prof Christopher Conway.

P.S. : Anandham says, there wasn't much Sinhalese in the play, probably. I believe the troupe must be large, with various actors performing at different events, which leaves the production flexible enough to entertain a wide set of audiences, by simply plugging in or out some bits from the play. I stand corrected there. Thanks Anand!