Raat - A night to remember. Review on Raat

The Appointment:

Sunday, August 7 at 7.00 p.m.

Auditorium of ''Taramati Baradari''

Donor passes: Rs. 250 and 100

[Note: Story Revealed in detail]

The Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Foundation's brought ''Raat'' to Hyderabad but staged it at a five star hotel and the entry was through invitation. As you can guess, I had to wait for a day to watch it being staged at an auditorium at the outskirts of the city. I took along a friend of mine who had never been to a play.

Raat is directed by national award winner Padmashree M.S. Sathyu (who once made a critically-acclaimed movie ''Garam Hawa'' on India's Partition). Raat, written by Javed Siddiqui, is based on a famous international play ''Death and the Maiden''.

The actors:

Anjan Srivastava (TV: Vaaghle Ki Duniya; Movies: Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa(as SRK's father), Karam, Page 3 and many more).

Rashmi Sharma (I believe she played a role in Ek Chaadar Maili See)

Surender (or Sunder) Gupta (Can't remember/Don't know much about him)

The Plot:

A man (Surender) is appointed by the government as a committee member to probe a riot that had happened a while ago. On his way home his car breaks down and one gentleman ex-cop(Anjan) drops him home. Surender talks to his wife about his new job and asks her if he should say no. They talk about pros and cons of the job and finally she says that he should not do it as it is going to bring alive the ghosts of past for the couple. Later, she discovers that he lied to her and that he has already said yes to the job.

Suddenly, the ex-cop knocks on the door and is invited inside for a drink by Surender. Surender and Anjan talk about Surender's new task on hand and the general state of politics. Anjan gets too drunk and is offered a night's stay. He agrees.

Rashmi (the wife) was a social activist who was tortured by the police during the riots that her husband is set out to probe into. She believes that Anjan was the office who raped her repeatedly during her custody. she is not sure because she was blindfolded every time this was done to her.

Rashmi ties Anjan to a chair, tortures him and asks him to accept his crime. Anjan pleads not-guilty but Rashmi won't listen.

Surender joins the fray. He tells Rashmi that he will convince Anjan to write his confession. Anjan resists but when Surender says that he too believes his wife to be insane and him innocent, Anjan agrees to write a confession. Anjan writes verbatim the story told to him by Surender which in turn was narrated to him by Rashmi.

An interesting hearing of the ''culprit'' in Rashmi's ''court'' is initiated by Surender. Anjan reads out his confession. He talks about one ''Inspector Patole'' whereas he was dictated ''Inspector Patil''. This correction is proof enough for Rashmi. She wants to kill him immediately.

The final scene is quite beautifully crafted and brings down the curtains on an optimistic note. Once the inspector says ''Upar se order tha...main sirf apni duty kar raha tha''(top people wanted it this way... I was just doing my job), Rashmi lets

him go. She forgives him and tells her husband that she wants to get on with life - that she wants to adopt a daughter.

Acting Performances:

Surender does his bit with poise. His is more of a charactert that needs to be underplayed. He does it perfectly. Scene to watchout is the one where he suddenly changes his demeanour and verbally attacks Anjan Srivstava.

Rashmi Sharma is the central character and actually carries the play on her able shoulders. She is a terrific actor. She overdoes it at times but has put an excellent overall performance. He histrionics move you, her passion gets you involved, her outburst sends shivers down your spine. She has done justice to her character.

Anjan Srivastava. When he came on stage after the play concluded, he was greeted with loudest cheers and a seemingly never ending applause. That should sum his performance up for almost all of us. For those who love the technical side of it, he looks pretty much in his character and not for once does he let you feel that you are watching a choreographed drama. He is a very natural actor who has been around for a long time and his experience shows!

Direction:

Tremendous. I shook hands with Sathyu sahab after the play and told him ''sir, it was outstanding. thanks''.

It is a long play but the director manages to hold the audience attention throughout the proceedings. Hats off to him.

This dark story may not be entirely original in its plot but the treatment by Mr Sathyu is unique. The grim tale is told in a manner that does not leave you with a heavy head. Humour is appropriately used. All actors have done their best under an able

director.

Raat is a product of outstanding theatre.

A testimonial to this fact could be that my friend, who I talked about in the opening lines, developed a taste for plays and has been to many plays ever since.