An honest thief in this dishonest world. Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it? Well, ‘Charandas Chor’ portrays the trials and tribulations of such a personality.
Masquerade Youth Theatre staged its first play, ‘Charandas Chor’ (written by the late Habib Tanvir) on the 28th, 29th and 30th of August, 2009. The shows were held at the Top Storey, Alliance Francaise. Amitash Pradhan made his directorial debut and Dushyanth Gunashekhar was the producer and guiding force behind this production.
Masquerade, is a performance group, dedicated to the growth of theatre in Chennai. It was founded by Mr. S. Krishna Kumar (fondly known as KK) and a group of enthusiastic theatre buffs in 1994.
“We realized that over the last eight years, we had been steadily promoting children’s, tween and teen theater. It was a matter of time we looked at the idea of a young adult brigade of our own. Thus, MYT was born”, says KK.
The objective at MYT is to help nurture responsible individuals who can at least develop into a discerning audience and an objective mind capable of taking responsible and well thought out decisions that could contribute proactively to the community.
MYT offered its first workshop this summer from May 4 to 22, where the participants were exposed to several forms of theater as well as speech arts. About ten of the MYT incumbents and a bunch of wonderful talents were brought in for the production.
Habib Tanvir’s ‘Charandas Chor’ is one of India’s most popularly performed plays. “The chasm between truthfulness and thievery was completely destroyed when Habib Saab took up the pen and proved that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword”, says the director, Amitash.
The performance was sponsored by Media Center, Chennai Live 104.8 FM, DilSeBol, Preethi, Nuts ‘n’ Spices, and Kreeda.
With quirky dialogues and funny actions, MYT put up a great show and the play was acted out by the cast made up of Aditi Srinivasa Raja, Sanchit Shivakumar, Ramya Mukund, Ishan Venkat, Dileep Rangan, Sananth Kumar and MT Adithya.
Amitash Pradhan took on the challenge of playing Charandas while TT Keshav played the role of the cool Guru. The havaldar was played by Gautham Krishnan. “It was a role I really wanted since the time I first read the script. Playing a funny role and making people laugh is quite a tough job in theatre. But at the end of the day, I am just happy to bring smiles to the people’s faces”, says the comical cop.
Aarabhi and Gayathri were the choreographers of the colorful dance sequences and the team comprised of Madurya Krishnan, Shruthi Swaminathan, Shwetha Seshadri and Sunhasini Jeyakumar. The Silambattam sequence involving Charandas’s death was choreographed by V. Balakrishnan of Theatre Nisha and was performed by Nakhul Nagesh, Harisha Adithya, Uchith Nair and MT Adithya.
Sandhya RVS, Manasi Mahesh and Nakhul Nagesh were incharge of props and stage management. The costumes were designed by Lakshmi Srinath. Music was composed by MT Adithya and Aparajith Raman and Deepak Dhamija did wonderful jobs on lights and sounds respectively.
With his sharp wit and alarming honesty, Charandas managed to outsmart the havaldar, get out of dangerous situations and at the same time, charm the audience. The performance was a hit amongst both young and old. The presence of few of the great actors of Madras Theater boosted the actor’s morale. The response from the audience was encouraging and one member said, “The story itself, tells us about todays dishonest world and the actors are also put up a great show!”
With superb lighting, sounds and acting, Masquerade Youth Theatre’s Charandas Chor really managed to ‘steal’ the limelight!