Vijay S, Pranav Patadiya, Shakti and Suranjay Patil sit around to talk about Badal Sircar’s Evam Indrajit . “It’s taken a toll,” says Shakti. Indeed the play explores the depths of human nature. Sircar’s Evam Indrajit is also an actor’s challenge and delight, for they play multiple characters. Pranav points out: “Sometimes an actor changes from being a professor to a college student. But we build each of these characters separately.”
Girish Karnad’s English translation of Sircar’s Evam Indrajit, presented by Tanariri Theatres, is being staged. In the play, a writer feels tortured by the need for creative expression in an uninspiring, undramatic world. He decides to create a character, Indrajit, “who sees the world realistically and dreams about it romantically,” but then he creates mundane characters like Kamal, Amal, Vimal. The writer is unable to tie Indrajit to the plot and goes in circles frustrated with writer’s block as Indrajit is locked in an existential crisis. An absurdist play, Evam Indrajit strikes a chord for it’s a reflection of our own lives caught in an endless loop of repetition and mediocrity.
“The play makes you question so many things you consciously don’t want to question,” says Shakti. “It makes you think,” says Pranav, adding, “As you go along your daily life, it plucks you out of your situation and makes you think, in an Amal, Kamal,and Vimal, where is Indrajit in me?” Suranjay, one of the actors, adds: “When I first read the script, I was restless for three or four days. It made me seek something beyond.”
Vijay, the director of the play, says he had read the script and decided to stage it. “I had watched the staging of the play by Pawan Kumar that rekindled my interest in directing it. Once we discussed which play we would be staging, the decision on Evam Indrajit was spontaneous.”
The play is set in 1960s Calcutta. “I was kicked about a period representation of the 1960s. But then we thought the script is timeless. Then we thought to adapt it in contemporary times, but we didn’t want to lose the essence. We wanted to retain the essence of nostalgia which comes from the script.”
The other cast members are Vishal Shah, Anubhuti Sood and Saumya Gupta.
Evam Indrajit is being staged at Jagriti Theatre, Whitefield, on December 10 and 11, at 8 p.m. on Saturday and 3 p.m. 6.30 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are available on www.bookmyshow.com and at the box office.
