Synopsis
This is a city now. It used to be something else and that something else is history now. The history of this city is the chain of events, ambitions, aspirations, frustrations and efforts of the people who loved it even when it was a mere piece of land. They built a town over it that later ruled the country. The history of this city made it worth becoming what it is today – a city !
People’s dreams made it grow bigger. Dreams…they bring people here. More and more people with more and more dreams ! However, the dreams of people on this piece of land no longer form a part of the future of this city. The city has begun thriving on the dreaming people themselves and not their dreams. The dreams do not matter to the city.
The cytoplasm of this city is now full of vacuoles. A vacuum that believes itself to be living. People are engulfed by their own vacuum, their incompleteness. But the city continues to feel complete.
It is a complete city full of incomplete people. It is a maze of incompleteness. Each bit is incomplete. Yet, even if one piece of this jigsaw is lost, the picture will still be complete.
The city always grows into a complete picture full of incompleteness
Director’s Note
The playwright has created a masterly narrative of a globalised City which could be Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur – any city which is in its transformation phase of becoming a megalopolis, through the lives of a cross-section of its people — the young and the old, locals and outsiders, men and women, middle-class and working class. All add their own colour to the enormous canvas of the city in which some dreams die, others beckon, some lives thrive, others crumble. At the top of the rung, life is stable. At the bottom, the ground shifts constantly, requiring grit and guts if you want to survive with a modicum of human dignity. While people suffer their ups and downs, the city grows monstrously, uncaring about who comes and who goes. But in gaining some, you lose some. Unexpected turns in the lives of some characters, reveal the throbbing vein of violence that runs through life in the city. If one instance of violence has to do with the power relations between man and woman, husband and wife, others are clearly born of the frustrations that arise from the ambivalent signals the city sends out.
Uney Pure Shahar Ek has a cast of two dozen characters and some half-a-dozen locations, indoors and outdoors. The structure is episodic. Some scenes are brief, others long. The pacing of each scene varies according to context and content. Karnad is never judgemental about the city; nor is he nostalgic about its past. He sees it as a work in progress, propelled by the aspirations of its people. What makes Uney Pure Shahar Ek interesting is that, while joining some dots of the stories for the audience it leaves others for the audience to join.
About the Translator
Writer, Director, Music Composer, Light Designer and Theatre Trainer himself, Pradeep has a vast experience of 20 odd years of working in Theatre in such various roles. He has previously successfully adapted to stage Jose Saramago’s novel The Elephant’s Journey (as Gajab Kahani), Martin Crimp’s play Attempts On Her Life (as Tichee 17 Prakarne), Tagore’s Cycle Of Spring (as Chaitra in Marathi), Achalayatan (as Achalayatan), Tissue (as Ek Rikami Baju), Not Brain Surgeons (as Brain Surgeon) and also ahs written independent plays like Sahasrachandradarshan, Price Tag, Gabhaara in Marathi. He has several awards / nominations to his credit. These are Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Award (2011- Best Light Design-Tichee 17 Prakarne, 2007–Best Lights –Tu) and Zee Gaurav Puraskar (2008 – Best Lights – Matra Ratra), Bhalaba Kelkar Award (2007 and 2008 for Best Direction given by Akhil Bharatiya Natya Parishad), Prizes in the Final State Level Round of State Dramatic Competition Best Background Music (1st) (2007, 2008, 2009), Best Writer (3rd)(2007), Best Lights (1st) (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009), Best setting design (2nd) (2007),(1st) (2008) and Best Direction (3rd) (2007)
Pradeep has also won prizes for writing short stories and few of his stories have been published in reputed magazines. He is extremely connected with almost all theatre groups of Pune and amongst young theatrewallahs of Pune.
