A Bored Evening with Tin Ekanta

Director: Anup Baral

Translation: Aashant Sharma

Story: Nirmal Verma

On stage: Menuka Pradhan, Aashant Sharma, Deeya Maskey, Suraj Malla

(Play is being staged on Theater Village, Lazimpat till 25 August, 2015)

I was eager to watch this play and when I finally did watch it this evening, I feel bad to say that I’m disappointed. I won’t say that play is not good because it has all the good intentions but I, individually, felt it boring. Good stories, better performances, attractive set design and lighting, nice music, dosage of humor, a good use of videography on background to support the narration, but still I couldn’t help but feel bored.

This play, as the title says it all, is a set of three extended monologues. I found it quite a new experiment in a play. There are only four characters in three episodes of a play and main three of them (one in each episode) continuously talk for over half an hour. Initially, I liked it but as the time went by, I couldn’t help with boredom. Yes, I laughed at some humorous dialogues in between and found performances good. I appreciate all these efforts and the good things but it felt bad that the play couldn’t make it engaging enough till the last minute of each episode. May be the length of play could have been shortened, in which way it would have somehow helped to stay focused.

Menuka Pradhan on stage

There is a depth that slowly gets discovered in each three stories, slowly getting into the head of characters and elongating the thread of loneliness they suffer. Out of three stories, I liked the Ghaam ko ek tukda (One Piece of Sun) more. Menuka Pradhan is brilliant. I have seen her in few movies but in this play, I must say that she has performed very well. Aashant Sharma in Dedh Inch Mathi (Above One and half Inch) is wonderful too. Deeya Maskey in Weekend is just okay; she was better in 30 Days of September. I wonder how difficult it would have been to deliver non-stop dialogue for more than a half hour!

I’m getting it weird because although the director has tried to experiment and portray the loneliness of characters in a very poetic manner and actors have performed well, it felt like there’s something holding it back, like something’s missing in it. The play, as a whole was just not up to the mark.

If you happen to love the slow paced stories and can stay focused no matter what, may be you wouldn’t get bored like me and my friend did. It is because as I have already told, this play is nice in content—not bad, but boredom can attack you pretty early in a period of 1 hour and 40 minutes.

P.S. -- B.S. Rana, a senior actor, was present there, sitting on the very first row and what I see after few time from the starting of play is He was asleep! Quite awkward!

(Photos: Captured by myself as they allowed it.)