The Wedding Album Afterthoughts

For our second session, we chose to read Girish Karnad's 'The Wedding Album'. Aishwarya, Saumil, Nikki, Nitin and Pramida were the readers managing the difficult task of enacting a total of 16 different characters!!

All in all, we have to say that it was another successful reading session. Saumil was tasked at being Rohit and Mira at the same time and the task of managing both was interesting. It took a real funny twist when Rohit (Saumil ) started to imitate a woman. Pramida tried to do a guy's voice being tasked with a male/female role in one act! Did a fairly poor job but Saumil managed to bring in roaring laughter! All the other characters did well – Aishwarya as Hema, Vidula’s sister was a thorough entertainer.

Chai with Girish Karnad!

The play opens to Rohit trying to make a video of Vidula in conversation to be sent to her fiancé in America. The expectation is that the two would wed in an imminent wedding that will hopefully occur. The "hopefully" has been added on because Vidula and the potential groom still have an option to make that final decision. The story walks through emotionally charged conversations amongst the various family members, relatives keen on seeing Rohit married into their family, a 10 year old boy infatuated with Vidula’s sister and other crazy mishaps along the way.

As a group, we were not too enthralled with the play (perhaps because Girish Karnad has set a really high bar for himself). Even though it had some interesting dialogues, parts of the play were a little bit on the vulgar side and we were not too thrilled about it. Contemporary educated middle class families do continue to marry without meeting their respective to be spouses, have strange demons in their closets and to an extent the portrayal was just but it felt a bit exaggerated and interspersed with preachy dialogues. 

Comeplayalong rating 2.5 *

-Nikki & Pramida

Play Reading 2 : The Wedding Album

We are very excited to host the second reading of our series. For those interested in joining:

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Saturday, December 11th 2010

An RSVP is required.
RSVP to comeplayalong@gmail.com
*******************************  About the play :

The Wedding album is a comic drama that probes into Vidula's wedding festivities while providing a glimpse of small town contemporary India. This urban middle-class family has: a daughter who lives abroad with her husband, a software designer son and the younger daughter Vidula willing to marry a suitable boy from the US she has never met. Behind the facade of a conventional family, each character appears to have a hidden life.  

About the author:

Girish Karnad is no stranger to most of us who have grown up in India.  For the past 4 decades we have enjoyed his works as an actor, writer, and a director.Nevertheless here is a brief introduction to him as a playwright. He is most well known for writing plays based on the historical and mythological themes. However, off late he has also been writing modern day plays addressing the contemporary issues. His plays were originally written in Kannada and have been translated to various Indian languages and English.He is the latest of seven recipients of Jnanpith Award which is the highest literary honor conferred in India.

-Nikki & Pramida

Dance Like A Man Afterthoughts

We began the series by reading Mahesh Dattani's 'Dance like a Man'.

Although it was just the four of us,(Nikki, Sona, Nitin & Pramida) we  had a very 
successful first time reading session. The play was a thorough entertainer 
with the right amount of humor and drama to keep us going. The play opens to
Lata, a dancer like her parents Ratna and Jairaj, bringing home her fiancée Viswas.
The conversations & misunderstandings that occur in the first half of the play are
out and out funny. Nitin played the part of Viswas. None of us had any inclination
thatNitin would amuse us the way he did. The play sheds light into the lives and
minds of 3 generations. The first half of the play passed by with plenty of giggles 
and chuckles. 

The second half walks us through the difficulties faced by Ratna & Jairaj living with 
Amritlal- Jairaj's father. It continues to work through Ratna's aspirations for Lata's 
successful career alongwith a subconscious jealously that consumes her. The theme 
of a  dysfunctional  family is evident throughout the reading. The play ends on a 
sorrowfulbut thoughtful note -Life moves on, Lata establishes a successful career, 
Ratna passesaway and Jairaj ages.

All in all, it was a very satisfying read and deserves 4 stars on come play along!

Comeplayalong rating : 4*

In this video you can see Ratna ( played by Shobhana )perform an exquisite dance  piece while Jairaj is resigned to being her prop!

Play Reading 1: Dance Like A Man

We begin the series by reading Mahesh Dattani's 'Dance like a Man'.We will come back and share our impressions after the reading.  For those interested in joining:

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Sunday, November 21st 2010 
Time : 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM
RSVP at :  comeplayalong@gmail.com
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About the Play

Dance like a man follows a family of Bharatnatyam dancers from the fifties to the nineties, opening in the modern day with daughter Lata bringing her fiance Viswas home to meet the folks, Jairaj and Ratna.  This play has also been made into a movie directed by Pamela Rooks and features some exquisite dance numbers by the beautiful Shobana.

About the  Author
Mahesh Dattani began his career as a copy writer and is now an Indian playwright, who writes his plays in English. He is the first english playwright to have been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award. His plays have been staged all over India and abroad and have been directed by eminent directors like Lillete Dubey, Arvind Gaur and Alyque Padamsee.

-Nikki & Pramida

The Winter's Tale

Last Friday wanting to do our bit for the local performing arts  we scouted the  south bay community theater scene. We were delighted to know that there were several options to choose from.  We decided on Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale at Foothill College Lohman Theater.

Courtesy: ( http://www.zvents.com/)

Neither of us had read the play and we went in not knowing what to expect. We came out feeling like we had just seen a bollywood movie. The Winter's Tale has all the elements of a classic bollywood saga- romance, song and dance, comedy, tragedy, jealousy, secret weddings, repentance and a happy ending!

The performance of the actors who played the characters of Paulina, Mamillius, Autolycus and clown were heartening. The lead characters were good too but did not evoke an Aahaa from us.However we do give them credit for mastering the long and difficult passages from the language of Shakespeare. Overall its a pleasant watch if you are looking to do something different this weekend.  The drive through the Los Altos hills is an added bonus!

Here is the link to the event : http://www.foothill.edu/theatre/archives/tale/

-Nikki & Pramida

Let the Plays begin

Welcome to our blog!

We hope to begin a journey and explore the world of plays.

There are many works that have been created and staged over the years. We wish to bring theater into our lives by reading, listening and watching plays together.

We are also starting a group that will meet once a month to read plays together.

Looking forward to sharing the journey with you.

-Nikki & Pramida