Storyteller Gulzar now on stage

When it is Gulzar being brought to life on the stage, expectations are high. ‘High octane emotions on the menu', one would expect, without the cumbersome melodrama tagging behind of course. At Prithvi on July 3, expectations were similar for all who had gathered there! On offer was a staging of ‘Kachche Lamhe' (Vulnerable Moments), an adaptation of Gulzar's short story titled ‘Seema'. The play had got more than a fair amount of good reviews too, when it was staged in New Delhi recently.



The play essentially is a portrayal of a turbulent phase in the lives of a theatre couple, elaborately painting the plethora of emotions each of them experiences. Seema is an established theatre actor who is happily married to Sudhir, a director of a theatre group. From the outside, it is a successful marriage, one most people would dream of. However, the stage they are at is an extremely vulnerable one, one that can be termed as a ‘tipping point'.



Portrayal of myriad characters over the years has had a telling effect on Seema, who finds herself bound ever more tightly by the people she portrays. The couple's lifestyle is constantly centred round the stage and its paraphernalia, making life seem all the more claustrophobic to Seema. Conversely, Sudhir (Seema's husband) revels in the very same characters that are chaining Seema to a borrowed life. As a director, Sudhir seems to have found a never-dry oasis in conjuring up fictitious specimens of human nature and bestowing a kind of quasi-life on them. Needless to say, the years have eroded their marriage to such an extent that the stage is the last standing bastion of mutual understanding. This too is dwindling rapidly given Seema's aversion to being ‘a mere vehicle' in portraying characters.



Enter TK, a businessman and Sudhir's really good friend. Entirely different from Sudhir, devoid of the trappings of creative pursuit, TK is refreshingly different. Seema, already at a tipping point in their relationship, finds herself suddenly gravitating towards this whiff of fresh air in her life. Soon enough she finds the zest for life that she thought had fizzled out of her life. What transpires then is that tricky path of treading over one relationship to enter another. What makes it really riveting is the age at which Seema finds this ‘Second Life' and its accompanying doubts and paranoia. Directed by Salim Arif, ‘Kachche Lamhe' is one play that stays true to its source and convincingly brings it to life. Arif is among the more respected directors on the circuit and the play serves to tell you why.



Lubna Salim as Seema is extremely convincing and portrays Seema's dilemma with elan. Kiran Karmarkar and Harsh Chhaya are the other established names playing Sudhir and TK respectively. In a nutshell, the play stands out primarily because it is about stage personalities and what it can mean to just keep painting characters on stage. More importantly, it is a detailed analysis of a relationship meeting a dead end and the woman's sojourn into a new relationship. Definitely a must watch for theatre aficionados.


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