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Horniman Circle Garden November Thu 12, 08:00 pm Karnataka Sangha November Wed 11, 08:00 pm Prithvi Theatre November Sat 14, 06:00 pm, 09:30 pm |
| RANAN'S EQUUS (English) |
| 2 Hours 30 Minutes (with interval) Peter Shaffer’s Equus is an intriguing exploration of normalcy and insanity, passion and pain, worship and religion. The play delves into the mind of 17-year old Alan Strang, a boy with a strange fascination for horses, a boy who blinds six of these animals in an inexplicable fit. Through a series of encounters with a psychiatrist, we come face to face with more questions than answers. What is normal, what is worship, what is passion, what is individuality? Can what is accepted as normal behaviour in society smother a far more spirited and passionate way of being, of experiencing life, of offering oneself totally and unconditionally at the altar of a personal God? Which is being more truly alive – living safely and happily or developing a very personal pain and passion? Equus throws up all these issues using the mythic figure of a horse as metaphor for worship, passion, pain and danger. |
| Director's Note : Equus is a play that is both haunting and daunting. I found echoes of Equus in the world we inhabit today. The faces of violence are getting younger and younger. Alan Strang could be any of the perpetrators involved in the apparently random acts of youth violence we encounter so regularly today. Society has begun to exist on the borderlines of fear surrounding itself with the tools of violence to feel safer. Horse-riding was a passion with me during school. Years later, when I worked with the Equilibre Horse Theatre Company in Wales, the majesty, mystique, grace and rhythm of horses came back to me with full force. Along with their contrasting natures of serenity and unpredictability. These textures are all there in Equus. The greatest challenge has been to create the rawness and brutality in the text using dance and movement, dancers and actors. It is inordinately difficult for trained classical dancers not to be ‘pretty’ on stage and actors used to text to move with a specific sensibility of space and time. I specially explored the connection of rhythm with both horses and Kathak, expanding the idea of rhythm from an external impulse into one that drives the characters in the play. Evolving every aspect of the production – costumes, music, set, lights – has been a challenge for both me and the designers. The attempt has been to collaboratively create a compelling performance that treads the thin line between sensuality and brutality, normalcy and insanity, primal forces and contemporary pressures. Ranan : Ranan is a young performance company starting out on an exciting journey of discovery—a journey powered with the electric joy, the fascinating ephemerality, the inspired and inspiring moments of live performance. Originally set up by two Kathak dancers, Ranan is built on a conviction that traditional art forms like Kathak are constantly evolving and living elements capable of communicating with any audience across ages and cultural backgrounds. A focus on dialogue and interaction between the arts makes Ranan a hybrid between dance / performance company, arts service organization and an active player in the realm of performing arts theory and practice. Ranan’s variety of work spans traditional Kathak, choreography, dance-theatre; workshops, lec-dems, seminars, interaction sessions, collaborations; experimentations with film and live dance. Ranan hopes to serve as a nodal point for exchange, debate and experimentation in the performing arts in India, and stimulate and evolve fresh ideas and avenues distinctly Indian in nature but as nationally and internationally relevant as any other contemporary or experimental work. |
| Cast : |
| Frank Strang/Horse/Customer/Priest Amlan Chaudhuri Dr. Margaret Dysart Daminee Mukherjee Nurse/Horse/Customer Debosmita Roychoudhury Dora Strang/Horse/Customer Jayati Chakraborty Jill/Horse/Priest Indudipa Sinha Horseman/Horse/Customer/Priest Rhea Das Alan Strang Shadab Kamal Harold Salomon/Henry Dalton/Horse/Customer Tanmay Dhanania Equus/Priest Vikram Iyengar Writer Peter Shaffer Concept & Direction Vikram Iyengar Choreography & Movement Vikram Iyengar, Amlan Chaudhuri Original Music Neel Adhikari Violinist Robin Lai Sound Control Katy Roy Stage Design Sukanya Ghosh Lighting Design Sudip Sanyal Costume Design Katy and Dana Roy Properties Management Jayati Chakraborty, Indudipa Sinha Speech Workshops Katy Roy Production Amlan Chaudhuri, Jayati Chakraborty, Debashree Bhattacharya |