In
their second venture applying the box theatre format,
theatre group Hauns Sangeet Natya Mandal, Ponda is set to stage
English play ‘Is God a Taoist?’. “The play is actually a
dialogue between two characters – a god and a mortal, performed by
nine young actors. Taoism is an ancient Chinese philosophy and these
two central characters talk about things like free will, morality,
sinning, evil and other human notions,” shares Mandar Jog, one of
the play’s cast members.
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The
author of the play is Raymond Merrill Smullyan, an American
mathematician, concert pianist, logician, Taoist philosopher and
magician. Smullyan started out as a stage magician but over the
course of the years he went on to write several books about Taoist
philosophy, which he believes neatly solves most or all traditional
philosophical problems as well as integrating mathematics, logic,
and philosophy into a cohesive whole.
The
play is being directed by Vidyanidhee Vanarase. Born and brought up
in Pune, he completed his post graduation from the National School
of Drama (NSD), New Delhi. He has directed more than fifty plays in
Marathi, Hindi, Braj-Bundeli, Kannada and English. Explaining the
whole idea of bringing the concept of the play into reality, he
says, “Is God a Taoist?’ has been a very long journey. It all
started almost fifteen years ago! A friend came up with this
‘dialogue’ as an interesting read. We read it. It was
intriguing, but probably not what we really wanted in terms of final
output. So it was left at that point. And then eventually I went
back to it when Professor Y S P Thorat asked me to do a dramatic
reading of this text for his students of Philosophy. And we did that
together. Soon, I was jointly teaching a course titled ‘Psychology
of Improvisations’ along with Professor Suparna Karpe. We took
this dialogue as a starting point. It took us on a very beautiful
journey. The kind of improvisational work students came up with was
absolutely inspiring. And since then it has stayed with me.”
He
goes on to add, “Last month, I got a call from Vijaykumar Naik
asking me if I would do a play with his group. I instantly agreed,
but I had no idea about which play I would like to do. We worked
together in a workshop and in one of our conversations, some members
of the group mentioned that they would like to do something that
they have never tried. And for some reason, this play flashed in my
head – a play that talks about Philosophy, which does not follow
the typical structure of a well made play, which has two characters
but a possibility of multiple actors, and to top it all, it’s in
English language. It was enough to try out for the first time.”
‘Is
God a Taoist?’ will be staged at Gomant Vidya Niketan, Margao on
March 11, 2016 at 7pm at the prize distribution function of the
Marathi drama competition. The Hauns Sangeet Natya Mandal is also
planning to stage it in other places of Goa, namely Pune, Mumbai,
Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
