Stage adaptation of books is a tricky business. That too, when it happens to be a popular book. Mainly because, when you read a book and like it, you create your own images for the characters and that can differ from person to person. So, when a Play comes across as good as the book, one should doff his hat.
Five Point Someone belongs to this genre. The book was immensely popular and well liked. And because of the story line, it was more a book about your own college days and not just the story of three IIT’ians. I am certain that everyone could empathize with those boys in the book and so would have had huge expectations from the Play.
Boy, was it Good!!! It was fantastic. The director should have had some solid faith in her script, that there was just narration and dialogues. No sweat about the props, nothing. And it was extremely novel to see an author narrating the story; while as a character someone else plays him.
No point in dwelling about the superlative performances of the actors, veterans and the youngsters alike. The adaptation was so very good. In a way I felt like I was reading the book again.
Surprising was the liberal use of the ‘F’ word in the dialogues. Theatre has come a long way in Chennai. To think of it, 50 years back , it was males who donned the ‘Sthree Part’. Many famous actors of the tinsel town graduated that way. Later, though it improved a bit, still there were no amateur female artists. Even in today’s Tamil plays, you have all the males as amateur artist, while the females are professionals. So, to see physical closeness and hugging in the stage was strange. Maybe, the doyens like Pammal Sambantham Mudaliar , TK Shanmugam & the likes would be turning up in their graves.
But, all in all the Play was good that you even didn’t feel that there was no break in between. Touched a chord with the audience. One scene stands out in my mind. With absolutely no dialogues, and only a spotlight on, the author’s post-coital expression was awesome.
Five Point Someone belongs to this genre. The book was immensely popular and well liked. And because of the story line, it was more a book about your own college days and not just the story of three IIT’ians. I am certain that everyone could empathize with those boys in the book and so would have had huge expectations from the Play.
Boy, was it Good!!! It was fantastic. The director should have had some solid faith in her script, that there was just narration and dialogues. No sweat about the props, nothing. And it was extremely novel to see an author narrating the story; while as a character someone else plays him.
No point in dwelling about the superlative performances of the actors, veterans and the youngsters alike. The adaptation was so very good. In a way I felt like I was reading the book again.
Surprising was the liberal use of the ‘F’ word in the dialogues. Theatre has come a long way in Chennai. To think of it, 50 years back , it was males who donned the ‘Sthree Part’. Many famous actors of the tinsel town graduated that way. Later, though it improved a bit, still there were no amateur female artists. Even in today’s Tamil plays, you have all the males as amateur artist, while the females are professionals. So, to see physical closeness and hugging in the stage was strange. Maybe, the doyens like Pammal Sambantham Mudaliar , TK Shanmugam & the likes would be turning up in their graves.
But, all in all the Play was good that you even didn’t feel that there was no break in between. Touched a chord with the audience. One scene stands out in my mind. With absolutely no dialogues, and only a spotlight on, the author’s post-coital expression was awesome.
I missed out Magic Lantern’s ‘Ponniyin Selvan’, which happens to be my all time favorite novel turned play. Glad that I did not miss this one though.
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