Wednesday at 7:30pm - August 1 at 9:30pm
Rangashankara, J.P. Nagar, Bengaluru
Perch, a Chennai based theatre group, in association with rafiki, Bengaluru is staging a play in English (with a smattering of other languages) 'Ms. Meena' at Rangashankara, Bengaluru from July 28 to August 1, 2010.
The play will be at 7.30 pm on all days and there will be a matinee show on Saturday and Sunday at 3.30 pm. Tickets, priced at Rs. 100 from Wed-Fri and Rs. 150 on Saturday and Sunday will be available at K.C. Das (......Church Street), Goethe-Institut/Max Muller Bhavan (Indiranagar) during office hours and at Rangashankara.
Online booking is at www.indianstage.in and www.bookmyshow.com and the ticketing helpline no. is 9886 370614.
'Ms. Meena' (inspired by 'The Visit' by Friedrich Durrenmatt) is written by Rashmi Ruth Devadasan and directed by Rajiv Krishnan. This play has been commissioned for The Hindu Metroplus Theatre Festival to be held in August 2010 and is supported by The Hindu Metroplus, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai, prohelvetia, Royal Sundaram, Teachers and Blaft.
Looking forward to seeing you at Rangashankara!
Ms. Meena will be staged at The Hindu Metroplus Festival, 2010 on August 7th, Saturday. More details later.
Cast - Karuna Amarnath, Anish Victor, Anand Sami, Iswar Srikumar, Sachin Gurjale, Malavika P.C., Veeresh M.P.M, Anushka Meenakshi, Sunitha.
Synopsis
Miss Meena, formerly Asha, returns to her native village Pichampuram after two decades to make her final film. She is now an iconic film star. In the intervening years, Pichampuram has descended into a state of dire poverty. With news of Ms. Meena's arrival there is a new burst of energy and hope in the village and she is hailed as their saviour, while Ravi, her former lover, now a prominent shopkeeper, is pushed to appeal to her on the village's behalf. After all, the villagers reason, Ms. Meena must still harbour some 'feelings' for Ravi mustn't she?
Ms. Meena arrives in state and pronounces her verdict. She make the villagers prosperous beyond their wildest dreams. In return, she demands a terrible price.
'Ms. Meena' is based on an original story written by Rashmi Ruth Devadasan, inspired by the classic play 'The Visit (1956)' by the Swiss-German Playwright, Friedrich Durrenmatt. In our story, we have introduced an important element namely cinema, which was absent in the original. The essential lure of cinema and it's promise of untold prosperity exerts a fatal attraction on an entire village and leads them into moral and ethical compromise. They play is not entirely serious however, but uses a combination of laughter and pathos to seduce the viewer much as cinema does. In the process, the distinction between the real and the reel becomes tenuous and both serve to lead the story to it's inevitable end.
The Group – Perch, Chennai
Perch is an active theatre group based in Chennai gaining in recognition in the last three years. The idea of Perch came into being in 2006 when it organised a fortnight long festival called 'Angloscapes' that focused on the Anglo-Indian community and included a play, a food festival, film screenings, a photo exhibition and a music concert. Perch was formally registered as a society in 2008. It organised an ambitious three week long festival called 'Under the Mangosteen Tree' to commemorate the centenary year of the great Malayalam writer Vaikom Muhammad Basheer in January 2008. Since then, parts of the festival and the two plays 'Moonshine and Skytoffee' and 'Sangathi Arinhya! (have you heard!)' that were part of it have travelled to Rangashankara, Bangalore, Ninasam, Heggodu, the Basheer festival organised by Mathrubhumi in Kozhikode, Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai and National Theatre Festivals in N. Delhi and Trivandrum. In 2010, Perch has staged a play 'Kira Kozhambu', a storytelling performance in Tamil, Hindi and English based on the folk tales of the eminent Tamil writer, Ki. Rajanarayanan. This play has already completed 15 shows in Chennai and Pondicherry.
More information here.
