Rangam staged 'Akeli' on 20.3.2018 in Patna - A report

Money driven love left her alone now and again

(A report of drama- Akeli)

Human relationship is driven more by wealth than love. Sushila comes to love with different persons at different stages of the story. But what is starkly clear is that her soul falls only for affluent class of persons. At the outset, a jewel thief wins her love though this ostentatious love lasts only for a few hours till they reach the railway station with a purpose to elope. The lover thief steals the jewels of Sushila and flees way deserting her alone. Though, after some time a rich person comes across her. He is Kishor who is again a wealthy person.

Kishor takes Sushila to his home but never loves her. He is more interested in his family business. When after two years she asks him to give her full right of a wife Kishor makes it clear that there is no such possibility as she is not a rich woman. One who himself is not rich can't match in psychic frequency of another rich person. Then, Sushila spurns Kishor and goes to Moti.

The fiancee of Moti comes to know this. She somehow reaches Sushila and urges her to return her husband to herself. On this, Sushila leaves Moti and again comes back to Kishor. But Moti keeps a track of her and vows to ruin his rival Kishore completely. He indulges himself first in a buying spree  and then takes to selling out all the shares purchased earlier. 

Because of the nefarious designs of Moti, the financial position of Kishor falters and is soon biting the dust. Now when Kishor is fully destroyed and is badly in need of support Sushila tells him that now she is going to leave him (Kishor) as she is feeling very tired and wants to begin her life afresh with a different person. And thus she takes her belongings and goes to the railway station. 

The story by Saadat Hasan Manto is very difficult to stage as the scenes of railway station, arrival of train, crowd etc demand too much to an amateur group who don't perform drama to earn money. Still the director Raas Raaz  did them all so well. The main actress Oshin Priya was in her debut in on-stage acting and was able to startle everybody with her flawless acting and impressive dance supported with emotive facial expressions. The play was full of love scenes and romantic music so the hall was brimming with the crowd. Acting of all the actors specially of Raas Raaz Oshini Priya and Ujjwala Ganguli  was worthy to be applauded. Raas Raaz was good with his body language. Dialogue delivery was impressive though scope of improvement can not be denied. 

Udit Kr, Kumar Satyan, Santosh Rajput, Manish Mahiwal, Amod Albela, Aprawanash Dabarwal, Vini Kr, Vishal Pandey did their best on-stage. From backstage Sananya (make-up),Uday Sagar (Costumes), Gyan Pandit (Music)  and all others added  valuable inputs in the play. Yes, this must be borne in mind that there is no problem in using part of filmy songs or dialogues but playing full filmy songs may demean the very identity of the medium of stage performance itself. A folk or semi classical song should be preferred upon if it is required to be played in full. The stage decoration creating a star-studded  scene matched with the ambiance required for the play and credit for this goes to  Santosh Rajput. There is not an iota of doubt in saying that these kind of theatrical performances full of music, romance and event-centric stories would go a long way in securing a good mass of audience, the dire need of drama auditoriums nowadays. .   
.........
Report by - Hemant Das 'Him' and Sanjay Kumar
Photo by - Rangam and Dipak Dutta
E-mail -  editorbiharidhamaka@yahoo.com

The list of full castes on and back stage can be seen here   http://dramapagesbiharidhamaka.blogspot.in/2018/03/blog-post_21.html