While watching the play, Ruins of the Mid-Air Castles, you’ll have to read between the lines. Only glitch is, these lines are wordless. In a day, when the medium of language has codified the entire gamut of human expression into a single thread of words, the play comes as an applaudable effort that leaves you speechless.
Highlighting a regular dysfunctional family, it consists of everything from lusty males, a wife with a secret, a senile dadiji, girlfriends, boyfriends, a militant maid—all doing those typical Delhi things—tells us the writer and director of the play, S Somasundaram. “There’s love-shove, lust-wust, politics-sholitics, comedy-shomedy and tragedy-wagedy, but everything’s communicated without saying anything,” he says.
While putting the script to stage, he wanted to make sure that the differently abled art enthusiasts could also get entertained. Once he achieved that through Ruins of Mid-Air Castles, he feels the weeks of effort put into ideating the script was worth it. “I’ve acted in many silent roles and honed my skills of expressing without words to perfection. It takes the artiste to a different level,” he says, adding, “Every situation in the story line is built in a way that all characters react automatically, instead of verbalising,” says Somasundaram, who first staged the show 15 years ago at Akshara. “The social context within which the play operates hasn’t changed a bit. That is to also imply that much hasn’t changed in the outside world either. I’m sure the story line will interest people even 15 years from now,” he says.
Date June 23 to 28
Time 7.30 pm
Venue 11-B, Baba Kharak Singh Marg, Connaught Place Tickets Available at www.bookmyshow.com and Akshara Theatre
Price Rs 300