Sunday, April 3, 2016

A Midsummer Night’s Sapana: Love story full of comedy

A Midsummer Night’s Sapana is the Nepali adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. The veteran Sunil Pokharel deserves brownie points for presenting this drama in such an accomplished manner. The director along with the ones involved in Nepalifying the drama has succeeded wonderfully.

There are primarily three things going on: the chase and run for the love of the four young characters, a group of few people practicing for a drama to perform on the night of their King’s wedding, and in the world of God and fairies, Indra is trying to win the love of fairy-queen. They all happen to arrive in the same jungle and there is Chature, a quirky soul, amidst these happenings, who brings the supernatural turn to the stroy and fuels the fun events in their lives.

With the separate imaginative world and the real one, it looks like a fairy-tale filled with a lot of humor. With regard to the smooth transition and interaction shown between two worlds, complimented with an ample dose of laughter in a love story, the drama is very much finely executed.

The mischiefs of Chature make sure of fun, so does the final act, drama inside the play. That one truly deserves an applause; as it binds everything together at the end.


The set looks beautiful and the actors seem to be making every bit use of it. Lighting adds more sparkling. Music by Baaja Music Group is first-rate, it gets just right into the theme of a play and develops the engaging mood throughout. Choreography by Pradeep Lama is decent, the dance sequences in between make it feels like watching a musical.  Costumes are well-taken care of.

Performances are good. The new Sunil Pokharel-trained students have displayed sheer confidence on stage. J.D. Tamu as Chature and Anil Subba as Bale stand out among others. They have completely sunk into their characters and have delivered strong performances. Special mention to the acrobat skills of J.D. and the comic timing of Anil. They shine with their impressive acts.


Aavash Adhikari, Sangeet Sapkota, Poojan Thapa are good as well. Other supporting actors fit into their roles. But at places, actors playing the fairies seem to have trouble in dialogue delivery. That’s okay, though, considering they are the first-time performers.

Dialogues are humorous; some with the double meaning are intended to crack a laughter, which seems successful as the audience really laughed out loud.

Few negative points can be said to be in the initial scenes between King and Akkalman, and some with other characters in the jungle later; they were a bit boring. Also, some jokes that Bale and his friends crack while practicing for a drama seem forceful.

The play-time is about one hour and fifty minutes.

But all these little hiccups disappear as the play moves ahead because the latter portions are too entertaining to complain. Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments keep the audience hooked and entertained.

Overall, the play is really good. Worth watching.

Being staged at Shilpee Theatre till April 9, 2016.

More details: http://www.shilpee.org/





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