Two + Two

Babylon,500 BC. In there,lives a hero,castrated and sold into slavery by his father,a Mathematics prodigy who courts fame and unrequited love.

Theatre director Gowri Ramnarayan’s plays are her attempts at protesting the violence in the world

Babylon,500 BC. In there,lives a hero,castrated and sold into slavery by his father,a Mathematics prodigy who courts fame and unrequited love. And in the midst of this personal turmoil is violence. In times when all top news is about war and strife,senior journalist Gowri Ramnarayan decided to write two plays set in two very different worlds,but united by a tumultous undercurrent. I feel that violence in the world has increased to unprecedented levels today. I wanted to look at it in a detached way,so I placed it in a context in the past, she says. Two of her plays,Mathemagician and Sarp Sutra (Serpent Speak),will be showcased at The Orchid School today as part of a theatre festival.

Ramnarayan chose Babylon as a setting for Mathemagician for its historical reputation as a hub of hedonistic indulgence. This place was known for its materialistic splendour. The year 500 BC is just a random number,the main analysis is how the main character of the eunuch deals with the suffering inside him. It’s about how this prodigy harnesses his talent to the engines of destruction, she says. Sarp Sutra was adapted from a famous poem by Arun Kolatkar. I have always been deeply moved by Kolatkar’s poetry. His poems have this quiet,understated irony about them, adds she. The play deals with the issue of genocide,and Ramnarayan’s biggest challenge was to find a form to match the idea. So she infused a lot of movement and dance into the narrative. And also went back to the Mahabharata to get some inspiration. Ved Vyasa was the most interesting journalist ever,his dispassionate reportage of the Mahabharata was so powerful, she says.

In the background of Mathemagician will be a live musical arrangement of thumri,ghazal and geet belonging to the Radha-Krishna and Sufi genres. The Holy Cow Performing Arts Company of Scotland staged Mathemagician at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2010,where it was nominated for the Edinburgh Evening News Award. Sarp Sutra ,on the other hand,is an allegorical whirl within which music,dance and drama churn. Within the narrative,Ramnarayan was fraught with a difficult juxtaposition of the reporter and the victim. I have tried to present both the views,so it’s two parallel voices that you would see.

Beyond the theatrical presentations,is a message that Ramnarayan doesn’t want to assign a label to. She says,I don’t think I am writing to be smug or to provide any solutions. I am writing to understand my world,to raise questions. I am an individual living a very ordinary life in a small place called Chennai,it’s no New York or Berlin. But I still feel every one of us needs to take personal responsibility for what’s happening around us. How can we say we are not connected?

The two plays will be staged on April 1 and 2 at The Orchid School,between 7pm and 8.30 pm.

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Gowri Ramnarayan