Puppy Love

Because clichés make cultural icons,theatre group Theatron X probably deemed it necessary to explore all the possible stereotypes in their musical play titled Ghumiye Poro Na Plz…. Staged at Oxford Gallery this Wednesday the play is about teenage love as opposed to midlife crisis. So there is a lot of Jibanananda Das quotations,Tagore songs and of course stilted soliloquies on the first flush of love. The dialogues are incredulously affected and the characters protoypical. The middle aged ennui is projected through vacuous monologues where characters talk about dogs barking and old women coughing while teenage love is all about a simpering damsel who chides her passionate lover for holding her hand in public. The Jibanannanda Das spouting lover on the other hand,has the irritating habit of philosophizing tiny droplets of rain water which he claims “ought to be smeared on oneself because they melt away in the dark of the night”. Two visibly uncomfortable narrators,meanwhile,walk awkwardly across the stage whirling umbrellas and urging the lovers to be more proactive.

Yet,it would be unfair to dismiss the play as a juvenile attempt altogether. The young actors manage to bring some amount of credibility to the enterprise with their earnest performances.