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The Hindu :
Young adult problems might make for dramatic lives, but they do not always make for good drama. Ram Ganesh Kamatham’s “Crab”, lauded as one of the “younger” plays of the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival, for instance, see
ms to fall short of its potential because it bears a distinct bias towards its young actors.

Staged on Tuesday by Q Theatre Productions, Mumbai, the play follows the tangled lives of four young adults. Zamiel, the existentialist hero of the play, climbs mountains to get away from a world he doesn’t like. Jojo, abused and now abusing marijuana, is frustrated by Zamiel’s distance from her. Priya is the other woman, withdrawn from her life because she can’t take the bleakness of her world. And Rocky seesaws between his concern for Jojo and the shame and guilt of his darkest violence against her.

On the face of it, the story has a great deal of material to work with. Particularly the relationship between Zamiel and Jojo, with its debate on where one draws the line between personal space and uncaring distance. In the same vein is Rocky’s dilemma, a decidedly grey texture in Rocky’s otherwise black and white view of the world. And in a larger sense, there is the very futility of young adult lives and possibilities squandered on angst.

In a sense, the play does explore these ideas. At all points, there is a sense that playwright and director both recognise there is more to this tale than the characters realise. Occasionally, you can see that shine through, in a character’s description of artificially stuffed top-heavy chickens on broken legs, for instance. There’s a grain of it even in the big line of the play: “Anyone who’s moved in a relentlessly straight…More