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!