The rain within
The Hindu :
A small room. Low lights. 25-odd people huddled close to each other. At the other end of this tiny space is what seems like the drawing room of a modest apartment.
It is Rangashankara’s near perfect-setting for intimate theatre, up on their terrace.
The eager-beaver audience, who had seen Revathi, the sensitive Tamil film actor on silver screen for almost two decades, wait for the drama to unfold. They can’t wait to see her from up close; her first attempt at theatre, in a performing space so completely deglamorised.
“No. 1, Madhav Baug”, written by the eminent Marathi playwright-director Chetan Datar, leads you to believe that it is the story of the middle-aged Vyjayanti (played by Revathi), who has three grown up sons. Vyjayanti, a romantic at heart, bunks office on a rainy day in Mumbai for sheer indulgence. She does everything she loves: drinks endless cups of tea with hot bhajias, reads poetry, listens to music, even as she does a recap for you, for herself, the story of her life.
She keeps – again and again – talking about her youngest, favourite son, also to talk about his father; the man she loved deeply, not her husband.
Every now and then, in this engaging stream of consciousness narrative, Vyjayanti suggests, how this man, the only man who made a dent in her life, gave her a hearing (“I wish I could talk to him, he understands”).
She goes through the break up of her marriage, upbringing of her sons…
As she is enjoying this wonderful time with her own self, there is this anonymous caller, who, at once, severely disturbs the balance of her life.
