A crumbling house of dreams

KATHMANDU, JUL 23 -
A man and his wife are living in a congested little two-room flat in Bagbazaar, where the rooms are divided by a wispy little curtain, no walls. Shankar, the husband, is a chauvinist, an arrogant, gruff man from the Madhes, while his wife, Tara, is submissive, completely devoted to her significant other and ignorant of his most blatant of flaws.

The delicate balance that exists between them, however, is suddenly exposed and thrown into turmoil when Tara’s elder sister, Beli, arrives to stay with them. Beli has lost all their ancestral property back in Sikkim where she comes from, and has no one else to rely on, but her presence in their house chafes Shankar no end. Soon, they are engulfed in near-constant fights, every day punctuated by yet another misunderstanding, yet another wrongful allegation. Poor Tara, pregnant at this point with her first baby, is naturally caught between her husband and sister’s tirades, and try as she might to distract herself, the daily emotional stress weighs heavy on her shoulders and poisons her relationships with both her loved ones.

This is the basic premise of the new play Swapna Mahal, directed by Eelum Dixit, which is currently being staged at the Mandala Theatre in Anamnagar. It follows the trials of these three key individuals, the weaknesses and insecurities that plague them individually, and how these impact their dynamics when they are thrown together in such cramped quarters. A presentation of Freelancers Nepal, the group that had earlier offered up the very successful A View From the Bridge about two years ago, Swapna Mahal is an ambitious piece of work, touching on various issues, including class and caste differences, as well as indulging in an exploration of the female psyche, and how it is probed and shaped in the hands of male cruelty.

The story here has been adapted from the well-known American play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, with the translation into Nepali having been achieved courtesy Samuna KC, who also plays the emotionally vulnerable Beli. Along with KC, the cast comprises of Pramod Agrahari who plays Shankar, Sarita Giri as Tara, with Sayad Ashok, Sudam KC, Mohammad Nazir Hussain and Junu Bista pulling up the rear. All actors, and the three leads in particular, have been able to do justice to their roles, investing their given characters with requisite complexity. And thanks to the efforts of the very capable Dixit, who pulls at invisible threads and maintains a steady pace, Swapna Mahal has turned out a fascinating, and utterly engrossing piece of theatre.

Swapna Mahal will be staged at the Mandala Theatre everyday at 5.15 pm, except Mondays, until August 18.

Labels: Entertainment, Highlight