Saturday, November 9, 2013

The proposal.




                                                        The proposal.


 A one-act farce by Anton Chekhov, written in 1888-1889

The farce explores the process of getting married with sworn enmity, the Neighbor. The satire could easily be related with the marriages in middle & upper middle class with all the economical greed involved. Marriage is a means of economic gain for most people. They marry to gain wealth and possessions or to acquire social acceptance.

It so happened that at around 8.00 pm, I was informed by Dheeraj- that A Tribute to Chekhov is planned at NCPA, performing his acts and if I can do anything with ‘The Proposal’? I’d read Chekhov sometimes back but have no copy in possession. I asked when the script is needed- he replied, “We are performing, five days from now. If you give script within two days, we shall manage. I told him to collect the script, the next day morning, from his mail box, which I promptly did.

While adopting I took the premise to Chandausi near Delhi. A perfect location for the battlefield between the Chaudhary vs Thakur. I further use Hariyanvee a bit to add spice but left Punjabi of Thakur to plain Hindi. The performers further added the colloquial accent to all the characters, making the act hilarious.

Including this localization of premise, lingo & characters my contribution to the act is adding the cell ring tone hook, Dialogues with the Dog & the ‘Powdered wine’ stuffed in ‘Asthma spray.’

******


No comments:

Post a Comment