Synopsis
‘Ghanta’s’ protagonists, aaditya and feroza, are your typical slightly mismatched couple: he’s an idealistic musician, she’s a sensible lawyer; he thinks she’s too careerist, but she thinks he’s just insecure because she earns more than him. Feroza achieves economical class mobility hustling over years whereas aditya comes from a privileged background. He is politically operative, conclusively an on-ground activist. She on the other hand is radically focused on her law practise and is dealing with her political uncertainty. Their differences are brought into focus when the government brings in a new law that forbids all citizens from speaking more than 140 words per day.
How could any couple survive in such conditions? The so-called “antah:shanti / quietude / muskaatdaabi kaayda” threatens the basis of their closeness, forcing them to water down their conversation to a meager daily quota. But whereas aaditya is affronted and joins a protest movement to try to get the act repealed, feroza, whose instincts are conservative, is initially complacent about its ramifications. This alters the texture of the dialogue as the couple look to economize their word count. Soul-searching discussions that had been long and involved must be resumed in near-monosyllabic tones. This constraint forces a stripping-down of language at the very point when emotion is most heightened, and the words should be flowing most freely. Their relationship may or may not be unravelling. This newly formed equation becomes prone to ups and downs dictated by the disintegrating personal and political contests. The compulsion of being woke refrains aditya from knowing that his sense of achievement is delusional. Feroza is too consumed and tired to let herself be taxed by the political discourses of the contemporary urban spheres around her.
Diretors Note
Post-pandemic, my practice has altered heavily. Why engage in certain plays, their impact on my personal and social understanding and chiefly-the grammar and syntax of the dramatic structure has taken centre stage. Steiner’s, ‘lemons….’ struck a chord deeply and fundamentally where the slipperiness and complexity of language gets a rigorous workout while it attempts to show how words can conceal and also how apparent banalities can carry value and meaning. Of course, the play is as much about resistance as it is about language. Recent events in the country make many of its ideas feel not just interesting in the abstract, but alarmingly urgent. The play deals with the nation – citizen or society- human binaries, which have become strangely haphazard and bitter in today’s times. The overgrowing compulsion of out-woking and arriving as a reactionary has become evident for us. The strained socio-political environment has thrown cohabiting individuals into a disorder of communication, of language, love and freedom. The fracture between aaditya’s activism and feroza’s apolitical uncertainty feels deeper and more pointed, a parable about creeping fascism. The inquiry of love emerging, relations sustaining and people coexisting is a concern-matter of the play which fascinated me. It’s a comment on the loss of freedoms and the general rise of global authoritarianism in recent years. The heavily segmented, non-linear narrative structure of this two-hander offered an imposing directorial challenge which was fun to wrestle with. Hope the audience resonates as much as we did while making the play. Lou!
About The Playwright | Sam Steiner
Sam is a playwright and screenwriter from manchester. His debut play, the award-wining ‘lemons lemons lemons lemons lemons’, was first produced by walrus theatre (a company he co-founded), and has subsequently been performed all over the world, in eight different languages. Since then, sam’s work on stage has included ‘you stupid darkness!’ (paines plough/theatre royal plymouth/southwark playhouse), ‘kanye the first’ (hightide) and most recently ‘a table tennis play’ (walrus theatre) at the edinburgh fringe. He completed an attachment at paines plough as their playwright fellow and holds an ma in screenwriting from the national film and television school. Sam is currently under commission at the almeida, and is developing film projects with sunny march, wychwood and dirty films.
About The Translator | Niranjan Pedanekar
Niranjan Pedanekar is a chief scientist and distinguished engineer at tcs research, and currently heads the media entertainment and advertising research area. He currently is working on reimagining the future of entertainment and advertising, which also includes applications of generative ai in arts and entertainment. Niranjan is also a playwright-director, and has written, adapted or translated 19 plays. He is the 2018 recipient of the prestigious tendulkar-dubey fellowship awarded annually to five theatre artists chosen from all over the country. ‘uchchad’, his marathi translation of yasmina reza’s god of carnage recently won the zee gaurav award for best experimental play of 2023.
Special Thanks: Anita Kushwaha, Apurva Kulkarni, Ashish Deshpande, Anita Kushwaha, Atul Kumar, Chirag Gujarati, Jeevak More, Pradyumna Chaware, Pradeep Vaiddya, Rajiv Gurung, Shukra Rai Gurung, Swarali Pawar, Kuldeep Singh Shekhawat, Krutarth Kale, Rajesh Bhavsar, Shishir Kulkarni, Gokul Kr, Tct Workspace (The Company Theatre), The Base Pune, Infinite Variable, The Box Pune, Dawn Studio Pune
