English adaptation of Take Me In Your Hands staged for the first time

Play: Take Me In Your Hands
Director:Dipika Roy
Duration: 90 minutes
Cast:Vijay Crishna and Dipika Roy
Language: English
Rating:3 stars
Though Slovene playwright Evald Flisar’s plays are popular and performed all over the world, the English adaptation of his play Take Me In Your Hands (TMIYH) is being staged for the first time in the city. A tragicomedy, the play, which is set in a book shop, is essentially about life and human relationships.But what makes it unique is that the literary backdrop — books, words, prose, poems — have been used as metaphors.
You have two strong characters, Zac (Vijay Crishna), a divorced man in his 60s, who owns an unsuccessful book store and Maya (Dipika Roy), a young woman, who is on a quest for knowledge and wisdom. She lands up at the store, for the job of an assistant and because she loves books, she decides to work overtime, in exchange of access to all the reading material in the shop. Since they both have opposing personalities and ideologies that clash, when they have to save the bookshop from being sold, fireworks ensue.
What’s enjoyable about TMIYH are the characters and the conversations between them. Zac is pessimistic, burdened and believes in following rules, a contrast to Maya, who is the happy free-spirit, who believes in living life on her own terms. So when Maya wants to resuscitate the dying book shop (with her unconventional marketing techniques!), Zac isn’t too keen. You can see there is an unspoken love story, between two people who are as different as chalk and cheese. Though they love each other, they have difficulty expressing their feelings because of the dichotomy in their thinking.
When the play begins, you may find Maya’s character a tad bit irksome but she soon grows on you. Despite the many flaws in her disposition, Roy wins the audience with her quirkiness. It’s interesting to watch Crishna, who happens to be the director of one of India’s foremost agri-business companies in real life, essay the character of the owner of an unprofitable book store! Not only do both actors play their parts convincingly, they also share a great chemistry despite the age difference and personality contrast, thus making their pairing endearing. Most importantly, the backdrop of books, references from classics and poems, the mention of famous literary figures… because of all these factors, the play is a delight for avid readers and bibliophiles.