Staged in the intimate space of Padatik Little Theatre on the evening of December 11, the Padatik and Rikh production in Hindi, Ho Sakta Hai Do Aadmi Do Kursiyaan, was an exposition of feelings, ideas and emotions as reflected by the experiences of its nameless characters.
Starting off in an innocuous fashion, the characters, portrayed by Vinay Sharma and Ashok Singh, explored the premise of the play (of the possibility of two men and two chairs!) quite literally through dialogues that appeared half-funny, half-philosophical. At times, their conversations and arguments laid bare the fundamental existential crisis of their lives.
Comprising several dialogues and monologues, the play, written and directed by Vinay Sharma, was made up of many individual performances, in which the two actors played multiple characters in various situations. They expressed emotions arising from feelings of idealism, love, loss, absence — joyful, excited, reflective, angry or melancholy — depending on how their story unfolded. Sometimes they performed together and at others on their own, making effective use of familiar theatrical devices to transpose from one sequence to the other.
The play explored the bits and pieces of these individual lives with a blend of humour and tragedy, its fragmentary stories bound together by the archetypal emotions that lie deep-seated in every human being. Themes like loneliness, abandonment, suspicion, guilt, anxiety and nostalgia were dealt with separately but tied together by a subconscious understanding of the universal human condition. The newspaper seller with his philosophical insights born of harsh experiences, the repentant husband who has been forsaken by his wife, the lonely old man who imagines that his wife gives him company over a cup of tea, or the schoolboy who found solace in the beauty of obsolete, decaying objects, all offered glimpses of the deepest recesses of the human mind that has experienced sorrow and pain and attempts to grapple with truth and reality through illusory experiences.
On another level, the stories played out in Ho Sakta Hai Do Aadmi Do Kursiyaan could be interpreted as an outward extension of the mindscapes or sub-conscious thoughts of the protagonists. In fact, each story lent itself to multiple interpretations depending on whether or not it is only perceived through the lens of realism. The image of the two actors and the two chairs on a stage stripped of any other background or prop, served to highlight the starkness of the human experience. Through the course of the play the chairs became more than props; sometimes they turned into an ally or adversary of the characters while at others they merged with the characters and developed into their alter-ego. In final analysis, the play dissected human psychology and relationships while brilliantly revealing a wide range of human emotions through outstanding performances by the two veteran actors, making for a truly absorbing theatre experience. The play was presented by Advertising Club of Calcutta, in association with The Telegraph.
Director Speak
“The play is very mercurial in its treatment of themes. The performance allows the viewer the freedom to experience any scene in his own way. Consisting of eight monologues and six dialogues, the definitive and speculative statements presented in the play are simply starting points for the viewer to explore the ideas contained in them. The play examines concepts of love, loss, absence, idealism through indicative and covert speeches. The different scenes and stories played out will initially appear unconnected but on closer attention you will find connections in all of them that will lead you to derive a better understanding of the play. That is what I have tried to achieve in the play,” said Vinay Sharma, playwright/director/actor of Ho Sakta Hai Do Aadmi Do Kursiyaan.
Pictures: B. Halder
