THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city-based drama troupe ‘Abhinaya’ will get a rare honour this weekend when it stages the drama ‘Sagarakanyaka’ at the International Ibsen Drama Festival in New Delhi. The drama is an adaptation of Ibsen’s 1888 play ‘Lady from the Sea’.
The final rehearsal of the drama was held at Vyloppilli Samskrithi Bhavan on Sunday before a select audience. “It is for the first time that a Kerala troupe is getting the honour to take part in the Ibsen festival organised by the Norwegian Embassy. It is an honour for Abhinaya too,’’ said M.G. Jyothish, director of the play. Jyothish had been working on the play for the last several months.
‘Sagarakanyaka’ tells the story of Elida, a woman caught between her man Dr Vangal and a fictitious captain. Dr Vangal, knowing very well that the captain exists only in the mind of Elida, tries his best to bring her back to normal life. The play revolves around these three characters.
The surprise entry in the play is its heroine. Noted television anchor Parvathy dons the mantle of Elida in the play. “It happened by chance,’’ she told mediapersons on the sidelines of the final rehearsal. Parvathy had met D. Raghuthaman of Abhinaya just to test her acting skills after getting an offer to act in the MT-Lal Jose project ‘Neelathamara’.
“I attended a day’s workshop at Abhinaya and after some exercises, Raghu gave me the green signal,’’ said Parvathy.
After the successful completion of ‘Neelathamara’, Parvathy got a call from Raghu to act in ‘Sagarakanyaka’.
The play was shaped after three months’ extensive rehearsal. It is Raghuthaman himself who acts as Dr Vangal. The fictitious captain is represented by voice only. Sreeni gives voice to the captain, while Pratheesh, Bilas and Manu enact the other roles.
“A specialty of the play is that we have conceived it as a multimedia project. The ambience of sea and seashore is created with the help of video and animated images. English super-titles will also be used while staging it at the Ibsen fest,’’ said Jyothish.
The Norwegian Embassy commissioned Jyothish to do the play after getting to know about his award-winning plays ‘Sidhartha’ and ‘Macbeth’. Jyothish is the recipient of this year’s Samskriti award. His drama ‘Sidhartha’ will be staged at the Afro-Asian Theatre Festival later this month.
He gets the rare honour of directing an Ibsen play along with renowned theatre artists Amal Allana, Sulekha Choudhary, Santhanu Bose and Neeraj Rabi. There will be five other Ibsen plays at the festival - from Egypt, China, Iran, Bangladesh and the Netherlands.
The Ibsen fest will be staged from December 3 to 13. ‘Sagarakanyaka’ will have two shows - on December 5 and 6.
trivandrum@expressbuzz.com
