The Dramatic Arts : Nethradharisanam

It is rare to come across a perfect play; where impeccable direction, writing, screenplay and technical direction seamlessly blend together to create what is, necessarily, a breathtaking experience. It is rarer still to watch a play that manages to change the way you look at the medium. Interestingly enough a ground breaking play need not be perfect. Nethradharisanam belongs to the latter category and while not impeccable, the effect it had on me changed my perspective on the way Stage plays can tell truly touching stories.

As it has been a while since I penned a review let me go through this part by part before I bombard you with my opinion. Nethradharisanam, written and directed by C V Chandramohan, was first released in the year 2005 to critical acclaim. The play that I am reviewing now is the re-staging of the same play, with the same writer- director, the same technical team and it also stars one of the three original cast members. Let me be upfront in saying that I have not watched the original. So any and all opinions I have are based on the re-staged version.

The concept itself is simple enough, a blind singer and a blind violinist, their outlooks on life and the bond that forms between them. It is only in its execution does the play truly shows its finesse. There are no set changes, no unnecessary actors and no flashy lighting effects; just really, really, good writing, acting and music. The story is told in the most minimalist form possible. There are no more than three characters, thus erasing all redundancy and also in a way curbing the writer from penning mere exposition. The stage is divided into three distinct parts to show the different important locations and simple lighting is used to show the time and place of the story.

The set design is simple, elegant and it provides proper insight into the characters. The lighting by Kalaivanar Kitcha is never disruptive and, despite its simplicity, adds so much, for the lack of a better word, atmosphere to the scene and finally the screenplay manages to utilize very single detail to bring everything together to tell a wonderful story.

I have spoken about the writing, screenplay, lighting and sets but it is in the acting and in the music where the play truly shines. Suraj Raja has given his single best performance to date. I was with him every single dialogue, scene and emotion. I felt his pessimism, his sense of hope, his desperation and his yearning. I relished every single moment he was on stage. Jaya Kumar, being the common thread between the two protagonists had his work cut out for him; but adding in the fact that he was also the comedic center of a very serious play, things could have gone seriously wrong, and while I waited for him to overstay his welcome in one single scene, he never did. He captured the hearts and the applause of the audience and, despite his experience, let the other two young talents take the spotlight, both literally and metaphorically.

Finally, Archana Sharma. I cannot pinpoint a single other character performance in all my years of watching dramas that managed to captivate me so much. Just like I do with any other play, I spoke to the artistes before and after the show and when she was on stage, she was the character. In every other performance I tend to see the actor playing the character, and when people say someone is a good character artist, they usually mean the big moments, where the actors pull the audience in and make them emote with the characters. In my opinion, being a true character artist is like a computer passing a Turing test when you know it is a computer taking it. You know they are actors but you only see the character every single second thy are on stage, so much so that you end up expecting them to act the same way off stage.

I believed she was a blind, extremely composed, conservative and talented young woman who chose to look past the obstacles that life threw her way. I understood her driven yet emotional centee and despite my core values being different from that of the character in more ways than one, I got behind her every single decision. To put it in humbler words, she wiped the stage with practically every single “character” performance I have seen till date.

I believed that the characters on stage were real and we, as the spectators, were just peeking into a significant moment in their lives. Almost every scene was consistent with the characters and I never, for a second, doubted the fact that they were blind. While I do acknowledge that such amazing performances could not have been possible without the writing and proper direction, I do believe that a good actor can take something on paper and breathe unexpected life into it. I tip my hat to the three performers on stage.

In a play where the two main characters are a singer and a violinist you expect the music to be an integral part of what makes the play work. What you don’t expect is the music to take a life of its own and in a way become its own character, hovering over the characters on stage and the spectators watching. The music by Guhaprasath does just that. In a place where you expect roaring Zimmer-esque orchestral pieces that convey the intensity of the emotion of the characters on stage you get the simplest of notes making the scene, paradoxically enough, something truly special. The subversion of expectation leaves you confounded enough to let the music take you away and make you realize unsaid character emotions and nuances that add so many layers to every single action on stage. The simplicity of the music also makes it grounded, making you feel that it is not something that is added on artificially to make the scene more dramatic and intense, but more like an actual part of the characters lives.

Having just watched a grand stage play recently with unprecedented production value I felt that the music was often too unnecessarily layered and complex where it could have done without the unnecessary musical riffs and western styling that detracted from the beauty of the scenes on stage. Here, the music does what it is supposed to do and then some, adding meaningful layers while being simple enough to not take away from the other aspects of the stage.

Nethradharisanam changed the way I judged plays and even now, thinking back on it I am reminded of minute details that make it stand out from the other plays that I have seen. But like I said in the beginning, just because a play is revolutionary and game changing does not mean it is flawless. There were a few instances where I felt characters put into words things that were already inferred by the audience through their actions. While it never got to the point of being annoying, I felt it detracted from the mature sense of nuance that was displayed throughout the rest of the play.

One small detail that really made me think was the when the script gave up on giving a timeless nature to the narrative. If one reference to cell phones around the neck had been removed the play would not have needed any reference to the time it takes place in; think “The Perks of being a Wallflower” Everything else fits perfectly from the constant and ageless nature of the pictures, set design and costumes. The one single reference to technology shows how dated the script actually and I felt that it took away something special.

The way the narrative ended did not bother me because of the maturity it was handled, but in my show I did notice one actor rush through lines. There are a few problems with pronunciation, and while there was a proper, in character reason given, I felt it could have been ironed out. One other small detail that I noticed was the Violin playing, where I felt the character made the same mistake that literally every single person who mimes playing a violin makes; a sustained note is not played by stopping the bow, but rather pulling the bow completely across the strings. All of these are minor nitpicks that can be, and I am sure have already been, ironed out.

Nethradharisanam also showed me how the medium of theater has changed over the past years. I noticed that there has been, even from the team behind this masterpiece, a gradual decrease in nuance in favor of more, for lack of a better term, simple narratives that seem to lack the layers present here. I am not saying that it is something bad, I am just stating it as an observation that I made. I believe that trends, demographics and audiences change with time, and a change in the style of writing is all but inevitable.

In the end Nethradharisanam is truly a stroke of lightning and I do believe that nothing like it can be recreated in the future. Times have changed, writing styles, concepts and ideas have evolved and Drama as a medium has underwent significant fundamental changes. Despite being a relic of the past, Nethradharisanam is, in my humble opinion, a timeless, brilliant, slightly flawed and yet, an amazing masterpiece.

Until next time, Peace.