Stoppard
Hullo. Any reactions to the new Stoppard play?
And more loaded...
Any reactions to the new Karnad play?
http://www.geocities.com/qtpthescript/oct06.html
And more loaded...
Any reactions to the new Karnad play?
http://www.geocities.com/qtpthescript/oct06.html
posted by ramganeshk at 3:59 pm
5 Comments:
RGK, u watched Karnad's play. tell, no.
it was boring.
i looooooved all the design elements (i dunno how Rajit managed up there for over an hour - its pretty spooky standing ,let alone perfoming at that height), but for me the biggest muck up was the text itself.
I won't give Karnad any credit by intellectualising the piece. Anyone can read into the work at length and find an immense richness if they want to - I fault it on its dramaturgy.
1. Zero active action. All action is offstage, reported and passive. The dramatic narrative is limp and unpowered by anything other than eloquence. It reads like a short story placed in a narrator frame - not too dramatic.
2. It's a 1 man play! - The dramaturgy is stressed even more by not having dialogue or visual relief. The monologic form has the trap of slowing down dramatic movement. This text suggests one single freeze frame with vague time shifts and even vaguer emotional shifts. Dangerously flat.
3. 1 'moment' - the dangling marigold. tht's it. 1 hour twenty minutes and only one reversal. the lingam growing hair and the sucide at the end too, get pre-empted in the text. i don't expect fireworks, but if i am to remain engaged it would be nice to be surprised by the unexpected now and then.
4. fourth wall collapsed arbitrarily - i love dropping the fourth wall. there's something about a character confiding with an audience that gives the space tremendous intimacy. in this case it was random. no fourth wall, a symbolic character and a gratuitous exposition of story. (dare i quote - ammunition not exposition!) what am i to do with this priests narration? - other than read into it for meaning? is he guilty? is his faith tested? i don't feel a thing coming from the character other than cold statement.
oh man ... i can dismantle this endlessly... i'll stop.
agree with my comments? disagree? no comment? keen on responses ...
anyhooooo ... lots of traps for me to think about. been meaning to try and write a one man gig myself... this is food for thought.
and again ... wht news of the stoppard play?
anu, its called flowers.
RGK, where did you learn all those heavy lines? this year's RS fest has been a real let-down.
learn???!!!
GRRR...
its dramaturgy baby... you use it while writing a play... some use it less consciously than others. and me being the technique junkie, tries to keep up to speed on the theory - though my writer side will deny any knowledge of this stuff.
Hey Ram,
Totally agree with you on the script. Heard Roysten's concept at the workshop and thought it, frankly, gimmicky. But it seemed as though it would save the play from boredom. Sad that it didn't. Cos I know a lot of people felt it was a really interesting script and in fact, Karnad's best work.
It's tough doing a play based on a spiritual crisis. Particularly when the spirituality doesn't come through anywhere. Who's interested in this guy's intellectual dilemma?
Sad for Karnad, man!
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