Theatre/ Play review- Wedding Album- an original, gone yawn!
Girish Karnad’s Wedding Album was playing in Prithvi Theater the other night. There was a lot of buzz surrounding it, considering the cast and the writer in question. Hence decided to give it a shot and that too on a Saturday night, when a shot usually means getting something that lifts your spirits!
The play started off promising to be something different, especially with the treatment of the typical pixilated video call by Vidu (Ira Dubey) to her prospective husband Ashwin, who is settled in US and yet wants an Indian bride. The storyline centers around the incidents that happen within the Konkani family, around the impending wedding of their daughter. Vidu’s family consists of her retired father, mom, her elder sister Hema (married and settled in Australia, flown down for the wedding leaving her husband and two kids behind), her brother Rohit (the breadwinner and also a prospective bridegroom) and their maid Radhabai.
So the stage looked set for some fun, drama and other things that you usually associate with an Indian wedding. But then that is where exactly the story lets you down. Every character is touched upon, the underlying tension in them /dual personality is revealed but then nothing progresses beyond that. There is no deeper probing of the characters, no justifiable background given as to why a character has been moulded or become the way he or she is.
As a part of the cast, Ira Dubey as Vidu and her father, Utkarsh Mazumdar leave an impression. Ira for her spirited act and Utkarsh for his awesome comic timing and one liners. He definitely provided the much needed comic relief during the play. However then these do not lift the overall feeling that one gets of a script with potential gone horribly wrong. The first half was tolerable but the second half just loses the plot and you get bored as a viewer. The wedding theme hence does not hold any relevance and actually works against the plot as you progress as a viewer. It could have just been any other occasion.
At the end of it you get the feeling of having watched something that was left incomplete with way too many unanswered questions. Part of the reason could also be the fact that the play was originally written in Konkani and the English version definitely doesn’t ring a bell.
So in this case, the play Wedding album is an original gone yawn… I mean wrong! .Get high the other way guys on a Saturday night and be responsible.
So the stage looked set for some fun, drama and other things that you usually associate with an Indian wedding. But then that is where exactly the story lets you down. Every character is touched upon, the underlying tension in them /dual personality is revealed but then nothing progresses beyond that. There is no deeper probing of the characters, no justifiable background given as to why a character has been moulded or become the way he or she is.
As a part of the cast, Ira Dubey as Vidu and her father, Utkarsh Mazumdar leave an impression. Ira for her spirited act and Utkarsh for his awesome comic timing and one liners. He definitely provided the much needed comic relief during the play. However then these do not lift the overall feeling that one gets of a script with potential gone horribly wrong. The first half was tolerable but the second half just loses the plot and you get bored as a viewer. The wedding theme hence does not hold any relevance and actually works against the plot as you progress as a viewer. It could have just been any other occasion.
At the end of it you get the feeling of having watched something that was left incomplete with way too many unanswered questions. Part of the reason could also be the fact that the play was originally written in Konkani and the English version definitely doesn’t ring a bell.
So in this case, the play Wedding album is an original gone yawn… I mean wrong! .Get high the other way guys on a Saturday night and be responsible.
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