Nishumbita’s Shakuntala & co tried, but could’ve been better

Plot: Translated by American Sanskrit professor Arthur W Ryder from Kalidasa’s magnum opus, Abhijnana Shakuntalam, the play Shakuntala and The Ring of Recognition, narrates the time-honoured love story of King Dushyant and Shakuntala. The play begins with King Dushyant going on a hunting expedition with his confidant and charioteer Madhavya. He chances upon an isolated hermitage of sage Kanva in the forest.While pursuing a deer near the hermitage, Dushyant runs into Shakuntala and falls for her at first sight. After a brief courtship, they get married, but Dushyant soon leaves to take care of state affairs. Before departing however, he gives his newly-wedded bride his royal ring as a token of ove and asks her to show it when she comes to visit him in the court.
One day, quick-tempered sage Durvasa visits the hermitage and when Shakuntala fails to attend to him, he curses her saying Dushyant will forget her. A worried Shakuntala travels to the king’s court to claim her status as queen, but Dushyant refuses to acknowledge her. When the time comes for Shakuntala to show the ring, she realises she has lost it on the way. Will king Dushyant accept Shakuntala as his queen?
Review: It’s not easy to translate Sanskrit into English and yet maintain the essence of the original text. in this regard, one must acknowledge Ryder’s literary endeavour. But by deciding to stick to the original dialogues, the cast made things a tad difficult for themselves. How? Published in 1912, Ryder’s translation was replete with archaic English words and in the first two acts of the play, the actors’ discourses were simply unintelligible to the audience as they lacked the necessary
elocution and intonation.
Akhi Bhaneshwar (playing King Dushyant) was conscious about delivering his lines and that dented his natural flow. In fact, the entire cast suffered from the discomfort of mouthing dialogues laden with archaic English words. Sashikala Dharmavarapu as Shakuntala did a decent job in bringing out the various rasas of the character with adequate expressions and was well-aided by Swathi Raman and Vignyani as her friends Priyamvada and Anasuya, respectively. Kunal Satyajit’s exaggerated stage antics as Madhavya, however, were a disappointment. He tried a little too hard to fit into the shoes of the jester and was out of sync from the play’s temperament and flow. There is nothing much to write about the rest of the cast.
By drawing inspiration from Indian folk theatre’s kinesics — the study of body movements as a means of communication — director Ram Mohan Holagundi employed certain stylised gestures prevalent in Indian street theatre forms, such as Veedhi Natakalu of Telangana, Therukoothu of Tamil Nadu and Krishnattam from Kerala, among others on stage. Be it with the circular spins (both clock and anti-clockwise), linear back-and-forth or lateral movements during dialogue delivery, Ram made the actors give the play a distinctive traditional colour. But at times, the actors, particularly Gautham Bhavaraju as Sharangarva, went a little overbroad, making it all look forced and out of sync.
By going minimal with set design and costumes, the production tried to draw the audience’s attention exclusively towards the performances. it would have worked really well had the light play and sound design been on point. One wonders why light designer Naveen Patel didn’t use two follow-spots as he was clueless which actor to focus on when there were more than one on stage. The background score was off in a few scenes. For instance, they bizarrely chose to play Om Namah Shivay during a scene where King Dushyant was pining for Shakuntala.
Verdict: Director Ram mobilised his amateur cast well in Shakuntala and the Ring of Recognition. His choice to integrate elements from Indian folk theatre elevated the play, but the cast certainly needed more hours in the rehearsal room. The light play and background score however, were a serious letdown. Given the lengthy dialogues and the demands of physical theatre, by no means was this an easy play to stage. but Ram and co., did manage to pull it off. Let’s hope Nishumbita Theatre and Ballet fixes all the holes before their next staging.