18/05/2024
REVIEW
The play : "Tiktiki"
Presented by : Dishari, Pune
on 4th May, 2024
at Jyotsna Bhole Savagruha, Pune.
Reviewed By : Hawkeye
The highly acclaimed popular play ‘Tiktiki’ is very familiar in the Bangla theatre circuit.
Soumitra Chatterjee adapted Anthony Shaffer's popular English play, SLEUTH, for the Bengali stage and It was first performed in the nineties by the Kolkata-based theatre group 'Swapnasandhani,' with Soumitra Chatterjee portraying the character of Satyasindhu Choudhury and Kaushik Sen playing Bimal Nandi.
Director Sayan Mitra, under the banner of ‘Dishari’, Pune, has attempted to recreate the play 'Tiktiki’ for Pune audiences; undoubtedly, a commendable and ambitious endeavour.
Expectations were high from the start, especially considering how well the play would be accepted by the audience who had seen the original play starring two stalwarts.
In such a mission,I must agree that the Sayan-Shiladitya team on 4th May, 2024 at Jyotsna Bhole Savagruha, Pune, made a successful attempt in front of around 150+ audiences.
The Story :
Satyasindhu Choudhury, the sole heir to a royal fortune and a detective novel writer representing the elite Bengali society, discovers that his wife is having an affair with Bimal, the 'son of Shankhari'.
In response, Satyasindhu invites Bimal to his palace and makes an unexpected proposal. Bimal falls into a dangerous trap, and a deadly mind game ensues.
The story revolves around the twists and turns of their duel, ultimately revealing how it all ends.
The play primarily revolves around two characters and their attempts to gain dominance over each other.
Initially, it may appear that 'TIktiki' is merely a conflict between two men vying for a woman, but as the story unfolds, the latter part of the first half of the play when Satyasindhu says ‘You do not belong to our class...’, reveals an underlying struggle between two societal classes: Satyasindhu, a descendant of the elite Sabarna Choudhuri family, and Bimal, a middle-class Shankhari refugee from East Bengal.
Set design:
The most impressive aspect of the production is the large set, which creates a nearly flawless drawing room for a royal family.
It has been quite some time since such an elaborate set was utilised in a Bengali play in Pune, I was told. Due to expenses, most of theatre groups, nowadays, typically opt for abstract sets.
Nevertheless, I remain puzzled by the presence of two distinct different shapes of white masks on the wings.
Light design:
The light design was pretty average, except for the awesome blasting scene with great sound.
And who knew pistol firing could create such a big fire, smoke and sound !!
One should avoid unnecessary excessive use of smoke machines and colourful lighting.
Sound design:
Except for the background music at the beginning of the play and the explosive scene, the sound design wasn't very creative.
Much used pieces of music used as background scores.
Timing of the pistol shot was well executed as expected, but it was the sound of a ‘gunshot’, not of a ‘pistol’ !!
At times, the prolonged background scores overlapped the dialogues which should be taken care of.
Still somehow, the sound helped to enhance the ambience of the scenes effectively.
Acting:
Since the play is a dialogue-based narrative, the responsibility lies with both actors to execute it properly.
Shiladitya Roy portrayed his role almost convincingly as Satyasindhu Choudhury supported with logical makeup and costumes.
It is a character who seems like a clever, vengeful feudal lord, hiding the true intentions behind a sly smile and clever words with cool gestures.
Except for the final part of the first half which I found to be the best moments of the play, Mr Roy didn't quite capture the sly demeanour and icy expressions, as expected, especially in the first half.
However, in the second half, he played his character intelligently and overall, as an experienced stage performer, convincingly portrayed the character of Satyasindhu Choudhury to the audiences' satisfaction.
Bimal Sen's character is that of an intelligent, smart and handsome careless young man with a progressive mentality, portrayed by Sayan Mitra who also happens to be the director of the play.
Technically, Mr Mitra's performance does not meet the core requirements of the character-driven psychological play – a character that is equally intelligent and sharp for an exciting duel.
Particularly in the first half, Mr.Mitra’s submissive demeanour lacked the impact of the character.
His portrayal of police inspector Balaram Gupta Kabiraj in the second half was impressive; thanks to the effective copy-paste exercise of the makeup and mannerisms from the original play.
But still,his ability to depict the complex character was commendable and the audience accepted favourably.
Both Mr Roy and Mr Mitra impressively memorised all most all the dialogues and timings for the two-and-a-half-hour play; undoubtedly, that takes a lot of energetic dedication.
Direction :
Though I couldn't gather much information about Mr Sayan Mitra's experience as director, he has definitely demonstrated his bravery by directing such a challenging and intricate play.
He deserves credits.
Though the play could have been a faster-paced, crispier thriller with improved utilisation of stage space, realistic lighting, better composition of scenes and subtle expressions etc., the audience, however, was completely absorbed in the play and enjoyed it.
😎EDITORIAL RATING👇
Tiktiki : 🌟🌟🌟⭐ (3.5 out of 5)
