It has been five years since Nikhil Mehta,a theatre student at Columbia University,and his young entourage of actors formed the theatre group,Crazy Spotlight Productions. The student group,which presents a play every summer,recently staged their sixth production,a murder mystery titled The Mystery of Martand Haveli. The whodunit,of almost two hours,is based on a story written by Keith Boynton,Mehtas classmate at Columbia. It follows Roudra,who wants to test the best detectives of India,and invites them to a spooky mansion called Martand Haveli. The detectives are supposed to solve a fake murder case but Roudras carefully laid plan goes awry when one of the detectives is murdered. Even as the plot twists and turns,sometimes getting a little confusing,the young actors,all college students,hold on tightly to their quirky characters,never letting the energy level drop. The bizarre theme clearly struck a chord with the youngsters who had crowded Shri Ram Centre for the performance. Their laughter interspersed with deathly silence filled the hall,right up to the finale featuring Michael Jacksons Thriller. Among those who stole the show was actor Mallika Dua as detective Shehnaz Begum,a loud and boisterous woman whose English diction had the audience in splits. I cannot thank Keith enough for gifting me just the play I had been itching to do, says Mehta. Even as he Indianised it and translated it into Hinglish,Mehta was careful to retain the essence of the original script. The play will be performed again on August 12 and 13 at Shri Ram Centre,Mandi House. Contact: 9810915002
