Kala Academy’s 9th Tiatr ‘B’ Group Competition 2023-24 kicked off in the city by staging of tiatr ‘Amdhar Porjecho Kamdhar’. The tiatr penned by Flory Fernandes and directed by Rosarinho Fernandes was presented by Quitula Sports and Cultural Club, Aldona Quitula.
The curtains unfold to a scene wherein three bachelors, namely dumb (Soloman D’Souza), the deaf (Peter Fernandes) and electric man (Rosarinho Fernandes) reside under one roof. There is Chinku (Bevanna Fernandes), who joins them and the foursome try to entertain the audience. The local MLA (Somnath Sawant), who is corrupt by nature, steps in and expresses his desire to grab the residence and property of the three bachelors. But they are firm not to sell their ancestral property.
A little later, Christina (Christina Soares), Celina (Celina Pereira) and Wilma (Wilma Fernandes) come in as villagers and they share many things among themselves with regard to illegalities and corruption prevailing around them. They resolve to do away with the corrupt MLA and elect a better candidate.
The new candidate makes his presence felt among the people, who shares pamphlets as part of his campaigning drive. But threats follow from the corrupt MLA. What follows next is to be watched only at the concluding scene.
Tiatr ‘Amdhar Porjecho Kamdhar’ speaks about the role of local representative at the grassroots level, the illegalities prevailing and what sort of representative people expect. Ultimately who triumphs and who faces defeat is shown at the end.
But one failed to grasp whether the story was about the three bachelors or about the local MLA. It was also difficult to figure out what’s happening in the consequent acts and the main plot failed to develop and reach a climax. There was an overdose of comedy in the presentation which had no link to the main story. And it appeared more of a presentation at the folk plays during Carnival festival. As per the rules and guidelines of the competition, comedy has to be interwoven and part of the main plot.
With regard to performances on stage, as the corrupt MLA, Somnath Sawant stood out in his role and was in command with his dialogues. Valanca Fernandes, Smitesh Korgaonkar and Giselle Parras came along as love birds. Christina, Celina, Wilma, Sainath Pandit, Vijay Gaonkar presented themselves as the village folk. Other artistes in minor roles extended good support to the main cast.
In the comic acts, child artiste Bevanna Fernandes was the centre of attraction and delivered her dialogues with comfort. But the remaining three comedians were seen overacting.
In the section of songs, there were 12 songs with a variety in different categories, but most of the tunes were picked from old songs, minus any originality in music. Some of the renditions were good and the six musicians offstage, namely Vitorino Araujo (first trumpet), Selvyn Braganca (second trumpet), Miguel Rodrigues (saxophone), John Araujo (keyboard), Neville Cardozo (bass) and Francisco Azavedo (drums) provided good live music supporting the singers on stage.
John Araujo equally handled the background music, while Vijay Remaje took care of the lights. The stage sets designed by Tejes Nayak needed improvement.
