Bland and pedantic

DAMP SQUIB A scene from Royal Shakespeare Company’s performance of the Bard’s highly revered play King Lear. Vijjay Nair’s adaptation of the play, turned out to be a disappointment PHOTO: AFP

Watching the three Vijjay Nair plays which were staged at the Rangashankara last week was like attending a master-class on theatre, but for all the wrong reasons. Indeed, from lacklustre, watery writing to indifferent direction to atrocious acting, the plays could teach everything one might ever hope to learn about what not to do with, or to, the dramatic medium.

In retrospect, the Abhishek Majumdar-directed Weeds, the first of the three to be staged, turned out to be the best of the lot. Though not a brilliant, or even a very good piece of playwriting, it nonetheless sports a few moments of dramatic intensity. The play opens in the aftermath of 9/11, when Rafiq, a NYC based Bangladeshi lecturer of drama, tries to resurrect his relationship with Teertha Dasgupta, a former stage actress whom he’d met and fallen in love with in Calcutta in1996. The play unfolds through the epistolary exchange between Rafiq and Teertha, now based in Kodaikanal, with “flashbacks” to the events of 1996, which culminated in tragedy. The play tries to examine two parallel themes — the demonisation of Islam in the wake of 9/11 and the destruction of old ethos and values by diabolic new influences — the one symbolised in the person of Sujoy Dasgupta, Teertha’s grandfather and one time czar of the Calcutta stage now battling senescence, the other in the person of Chaddha, the trickster who cons Dasgupta’s self-obsessed grandson Taposh into burning down Saptoporni, the auditorium which was Dasgupta’s life and soul, thus effectively destroying him. The first theme remains largely unexplored, but the second is presented interestingly, though one must say the playwright has failed in his characterisation of Taposh and Tamoshi. As for the execution, the idea of using the Rangashankara auditorium as part of the performance space was interesting, but having to follow the actors moving about in the entire auditorium was rather disorienting for the audience. The performances were not spectacular, but Nilanjan Choudhary as Sujoy Dasgupta was quite impressive, as was Kaushik Mukherjee as Suleiman, the old family retainer who perishes in the Saptoporni fire. Sumit Guha as the crafty Chaddha was more comical than menacing. Abhishek Majumdar and Sambrita Basu as Rafiq and Teertha were rather flat, and occasionally fumbled over words. Nikhila Mahadevan and Vincent Chackochan V. as Tamoshi and Taposh were below par, and the latter has severe problems with his diction and delivery that he must rectify.

Shut The Door, the second play, directed by Mr. Nair himself, turned out to be a disaster. Everything about the play, starting from the watery script to the amateurish acting to the vapid direction to the rather purposeless lighting design, was so cringe inducing, that one sees no point in dwelling on any single aspect of it. In a nutshell though, four moronic post-teens are stranded indoors when torrential rains cancel a Madonna concert. Enter an acid-sniffing ghost, Anand, who prefers to be called Andy and coaxes out their dark and buried secrets (incest, homosexuality, voyeurism), thus helping them to come to grips with their past. Egregious from the beginning to the end, this cannot possibly be called serious theatre.

The high point of the festival, Raja Lahiri, Mr. Nair’s adaptation of King Lear, also turned out to be a disappointment, and annoying because of it’s superficial rendering of one of the most revered of dramatic texts. The usually admirable Pritam Koilpillai also turns in a strangely listless directorial performance. One is not against innovation in the theatrical craft, and cinematic visuals can of course be used in theatre, but in the rare case where they are completely warranted. Here, cinematic sequences were used where, presumably, a paucity of dramatic imagination failed to carry the story forward through on-stage actions. Moreover, the filmed “interviews” with the actors, purporting to educate the audience about the roles they essayed, were completely gratuitous. The muse of theatre is infinitely accommodating, but even she might balk if such gross liberties are taken with her. For the record, Lear is here transformed to Raja Lahiri, a promiscuous software baron. The other characters undergo similar transformations, Goneril and Regan becoming Gitanjali and Ranjana, their husbands, Albany and Cornwall, become Deb and Aditya, Cordelia undergoes a gender transformation to become Kushan, Lahiri’s gay son, aspiring to be a fashion designer (clich
, anyone?) Gloucester is the paedophile Harish, Kent becomes his much-maligned secretary Usha, and Edmund becomes Aman, Harish’s bastard son. The story is too well known to be told here, but suffice it to say that in Mr. Nair’s re-telling, it becomes a sordid saga of pettiness that appeared, as a friend put it, more like a dramatisation of “Socialite Evenings” than King Lear. As far as the acting is concerned, Abhishek Majumdar turned in a more than creditable performance, portraying his character’s casual, pathological sadism with 
lan. Sanjeev Iyer as Vivek (the fool in the original) had an engaging monologue. The rest of the cast vacillated between boring to incompetent acting — Shaizia Jifri with her high-pitched, unsuccessful imitation of an English accent being a case in point for the former, and the completely stiff Pooja Hegde, of the latter. Ajith Hande was also good in patches. Balaji Manohar needs to learn to speak English properly before essaying a role, even a modified one, like King Lear.

All in all, a disappointing experience, trivialising the theatrical form, and one that will not do the cause of serious experimentation no good.

ARKA MUKHOPADHYAY

Hindu On Net

Saudara Pengarang,
MERUJUK kepada artikel yang disiarkan pada muka depan akhbar ini bertarikh 28 September lepas bertajuk Mawi mula diintai LHDN, saya ingin menyuarakan perasaan tidak senang terhadap kenyataan yang dikeluarkan oleh Timbalan Ketua Pengarah (Pematuhan) Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri (LHDN), Che Omar A. Rahman tersebut.

Kenyataan beliau yang seolah-olah ingin menimbulkan isu baru lantaran kejayaan dan gelombang yang dibawa oleh kehadiran Mawi dalam industri hiburan negara itu kelihatan amat tidak wajar untuk dibincangkan.

Dalam keadaan Mawi yang masih amat baru dalam industri hiburan, tidak sampai pun lagi suku tahun menjuarai Akademi Fantasia 3, apatah lagi bergelar penyanyi profesional, saya melihat kenyataan beliau tentang kewajipan Mawi untuk melakukan potongan cukai terhadap pendapatannya, sambil menyebut pula tentang penalti yang akan dikenakan seandainya pihak LHDN yang mencari Mawi, amatlah tidak sesuai dan berbunyi canggung sekali. Mengapa Mawi harus menjadi isu sehingga sebegitu sekali?

Kalaulah kemunculan Mawi itu sudah pun menghampiri satu tahun tempohnya, mungkin beliau boleh mengeluarkan kenyataan sebegitu, sebagai peringatan. Tetapi, tidak perlulah sehingga menyebut isu penalti kerana seolah-olah menyampaikan maksud bahawa Mawi amatlah tidak mengetahui atau mengambil tahu akan tanggungjawabnya kepada negara. Lainlah kalau sudah beberapa tahun, atau potongan pendapatan beliau untuk sumbangan cukai itu masih menjadi tanda tanya.

Amatlah menghairankan apabila kehadiran Mawi dalam dunia seni begitu menarik perhatian banyak pihak sehinggakan perkara yang tidak patut atau sesuai seperti ini pun turut ingin dijadikan isu.

Kenapa agaknya persoalan hanya timbul lantaran Mawi meraih kejuaraan yang telah memberikan hidup baru kepada dirinya, sehingga memperoleh banyak pula pendapatan sampingan? Sedangkan kalau difikirkan ramai lagi artis sebelumnya yang merasai perkara yang hampir sama (walaupun tidak setanding Mawi) tetapi tidak pernah pula ada sesiapa yang ingin mempertikaikan hal-hal sebegini.

Memang tidak difahami bahawa Che Omar hanya ingin menjawab soalan wartawan yang menanyakan tentang isu kutipan cukai pendapatan terutama daripada individu-individu istimewa seperti Mawi, tetapi tidak sesuai rasanya kenyataan serupa itu dikeluarkan, apatah lagi disiarkan pada masa ini. – PEKA ISU, Kajang, Selangor.

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Age is a touchy subject for some women, but not for veteran actress and model Andie MacDowell.

We’re not even sure how to broach the topic; we try the cautious approach, asking her how she feels about being cosmetics brand L’Oreal’s oldest spokesperson.

But MacDowell is quick to pick out the underlying question.

“Oh, you mean how it feels to be old? I gotcha!” she teased.

The North Carolina native’s Southern charm – even over the phone, her drawl is pronounced – travels well. Friendly and open with her responses, she laughs often.

The 47-year-old model-turned-actress is best known for her turn as the American beauty who steals fumbling Brit Hugh Grant’s heart in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).

Her latest role is in the TV movie Riding the Bus With My Sister, directed by actress Angelica Huston.

In the film, MacDowell plays an emotionally-detached photographer who is forced to take responsibility for her mentally-challenged sister – played by Rosie O’Donnell – when their father passes away.

Riding the Bus with My Sister premieres on the Hallmark Channel (StarHub Channel 17) on Sunday at 9pm.

While MacDowell’s beautiful features have stood up to the test of time, by Hollywood standards she is past her prime – a fact she is well aware of.

While in their mid-20s, early 30s even, the likes of Meg Ryan, Michelle Pffeifer and Goldie Hawn were on the top of casting agents’ lists.

To fill the shoes of Hawn’s feisty Private Benjamin (1980), Ryan’s orgasm-faking friend in When Harry Met Sally (1989) or Pfeiffer’s sultry gangster’s moll in Scarface (1983), you’ve just got to be young.

But then looks will fade. Botox can only do so much and actresses tend to fall off the box-office radar when they reach their 40s and 50s.

When actors such as Richard Gere, Al Pacino, Tom Hanks, Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsley reach middle-age, they are praised for the added “gravitas” in their performances.

When actresses reach middle-age, they are often criticised for being over the hill and out of place in a fickle Hollywood.

Too old for most romantic comedies and too young to play mother to some A-lister, they quietly fade away.

To make any kind of significant impact, they either take their clothes off and have raunchy sex with a man half their age, like Diane Lane did in Unfaithful (2002), which revived her career.

Or they slap on the make-up to age themselves and play a mother as Sally Field did in Forrest Gump (1994) – her on-screen son, Tom Hanks, is only 10 years younger in real life.

In general, only method-trained character actresses successfully buck the trend, with the likes of Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking) and Meryl Streep (The Hours, Angels in America) snaring most of those meaty roles.

MacDowell is not an actress in that vein, so she is forced to look beyond mainstream Hollywood for parts.

“As you age, you are less reliant on physical looks, and that makes you look at roles in different ways. As I’ve become older, I’ve had the opportunity to play more interesting and stronger characters,” she said.

“I hope it keeps going that way.”

One such role: The little-known film Harrison’s Flowers (2000), which also starred a pre-Oscar-win Adrien Brody. In the film, MacDowell plays a woman who goes in search of her missing photojournalist husband in war-torn Yugoslavia.

But many of the films in the latter half of her career have been pretty unremarkable.

It’s not like MacDowell can’t act. Critics may have savaged her acting abilities in her movie debut Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), but she proved them wrong with a star-making turn as a sexually-frustrated wife in Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989).

“Sex, Lies and Videotape gave me the opportunity to show people that I could act. I didn’t want people to think that I was beautiful. I didn’t want to be a Bond girl. I did the complete opposite of that.

“I’m forever thankful for that role; without it I would have never worked again.”

For that breakout role, MacDowell was nominated for a Golden Globe award. She was nominated again for Green Card (1990) and Four Weddings and a Funeral.

MacDowell has certainly paid her dues, but for those without the acting chops of Sarandon or Streep, she knows it’s extremely difficult for older actresses to find their place in Hollywood.

“It’s not Hollywood that I put the blame on. It’s really more of a social issue,” she said. “Movies are a business and the producers and studios want to make money.

“I don’t whine about my situation. You just have to be creative and look for different sorts of roles.

“I’m not bitter, you know!” she added, laughing.

It helps that the twice-married, twice-divorced mother of three has a well-grounded perspective on stardom. Her priority is her three children and she has no inclination to play the fame game.

An average day for her consists of typically mum activities such as fixing breakfast for her daughters and sending them to and from school. Her son is in college.

“My acting career is very important to me. I like to work, I’m not an idle person. But I’m also content about not having to work non-stop.

“I won’t have my kids with me forever,” she said.

And it was with typical frankness that MacDowell answered that earlier, awkward question about how it feels to be older.

“The first time I was asked to model for a product combatting greying hair was the point I realised I was getting older,” she said, punctuating the statement with another merry laugh.

“From what I understand, my products sell really well. I’m thankful for that.

“A lot of older women find it much easier to relate to me.” –

Channel News Asia

Tele-crusades

Spirituality on the box is attracting a growing viewership.

Anil Anand of Zee Jagran

Often in the fight for visibility among entertainment, news, sports and kids channels, the genre we tend to overlook is that of spiritual channels. But a quick surfing of your home TV today makes you realise how many devotional channels are doing the rounds. And they fight their own TRP wars. As competitively as the others.

One of the oldest such channels, Aastha has so far been the leader of the pack. But the news is, not anymore, as per the latest ratings. Zee Jagran has come to the fore. And the channel head Anil Anand is quite upbeat about the accomplishment in the last 18 months of its run.

“According to the TAM report, in week 35 4 plus Hindi speaking market, Zee Jagran is the most viewed channel with 7.3 million viewers. Its nearest competitor Aastha TV has a viewership of 7.2 million in the Hindi market,” a beaming Anand states. The other notable players, Sanskar and Sadhana, stand at 6.6 and 2.1 million viewers respectively.

For all

Anand says, “The point that has touched a chord with such a lot of viewers is that we never posed as a channel that gives only Hindu discourses. We have shows specific to different communities, be they Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist or Kabir or Osho bhaktas, the Shri Shri Ravi Shankar devotees or the Brahmakumaris. The programme Aazan actually airs the morning and evening prayers done at the Jama Masjid. Then, we have gurbani too.” Jagran also has programmes like “The Great Indian Astro Show”, “The Tarot Show”, “Nirvana at 9″, etc. to attract the attention of those looking for interactive shows on these subjects.

“Very soon, we will have more new shows. For instance, a cookery show, Satvik Rasoi,” adds Anand. Not quite willing to accept that youth anyway are not keen on devotional channels, and only the older generation comprises its viewers, he says, “We have made a conscious effort to make most of our programmes very interactive, because today’s youth don’t want to be preached to. They want answers for their questions. In most of our shows, one can SMS or dial a number for queries. And these shows get most calls from youngsters. For instance, The Tarot Show. We have found that youths in the age group of 22-23 years often call in to ask questions.”

SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY

Hindu On Net

Gripping work

SMOOTH FLOW: The Interpreter.

The Interpreter

Genre: Thriller

Director: Sydney Pollack

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn

Storyline: An interpreter overhears an assassination plot being hatched within the UN and this puts her in danger.

Bottomline: A must-see film.

As a critic one is always afraid of getting so involved in a film that one may miss its flaws. Sydney Pollack’s latest offering, “The Interpreter,” now playing in Chennai, put one in such a dilemma. But a day after watching the movie, essentially a thriller that tries hard to pass off as political, one found nothing to complain about. “The Interpreter” is scripted so tightly that editor William Steinkamp must have found it sheer joy to be at the table. This is not to pay him any less credit for finally turning out a film that is so well edited that a viewer finds it extremely easy to follow the story. There are occasions in “The Interpreter” when three or four or even five scenes unfold one after the other, with each following a different thread, and yet when Steinkamp gets us back to the first or the second follow-up, there is absolutely no confusion. The flow of narrative is amazingly smooth. If “The Interpreter” is a must see for this, there are other reasons as well.

Pollack is also the first director to have got permission to shoot inside the United Nations building in New York, a privilege denied even to a master such as Alfred Hitchcock.

Great visuals

“The Interpreter’s” director of photography, Darius Khondji, has given us some great visuals of the General Assembly and other areas of this hallowed structure.

When Silvia, an interpreter in the U.N., tells Tobin Keller (played remarkably well by Sean Penn) that she passionately believes in the ideals and goals of the U.N., he smirks.

Assigned to investigate her life and later to protect her, Tobin is a U.S. Secret Service agent, whose suspicion of and distrust for Silvia gradually turn into sympathy and fondness.

This sub-plot is handled with extreme sensitivity, and so restrained is Pollack when he directs scenes involving Nicole and Sean that a great degree of authenticity is achieved.

Nicole and Sean offer fine performances as their relationship endures an assassination attempt of an African head of State, political conspiracy, personal losses, and so on.

Both Silvia and Tobin are grappling with tragedies, and Pollack’s “The Interpreter” narrates a story of disappointment and distrust that ultimately give way to understanding and tenderness.

Nicole certainly adds one more feather to her long list of achievements, and Sean with his sense of detachment is a pleasure to watch. It is a gripping work by Pollack.

Hindu On Net