Monday, September 13, 2010

A different experience

Recently, I had the good fortune of getting free tickets to a theatre thanks to a friend whose brother featured in the drama. He had two tickets and it was Saturday evening so most of his friends had already made some plans or the others and when he texted me, well… all I thought of was, “why not?” So I agreed. Both he and I then set off to the concert hall in lady Andal School, Chennai, where it was being held... Also it had been a long time since we both had met so we did a lot of catching up chatting on our way there. The first of my surprises was to find such a magnificent auditorium built just for a school! It was huge from the outside and inside it looked something just short of the opera house and I instantly felt it was a great place to host good plays and as of for me, a cool place to start this newly found pastime. The play, by the way, was called 'Jesus the Superstar' directed by this guy called Michael Muthu who apparently is quite popular for his plays in Chennai atleast... cause quite a lot of people to whom I enquired knew him well. Moving on to the play, it was story of Jesus of Nazareth in the form of what I can call a Rock Musical, hence the name 'superstar'. The cast was well chosen especially the lead roles of Judas, Mary Magdalene, Simon, the chief priest and Jesus himself. Duh! It’s a musical so they're expected to sing too and oh man! They all did an awesome job with it. The play had some nicely choreographed dances added here and there quite aptly and there were a lot of these scenes (I think it’s called a soliloquy, don’t take my word for it though…) where the characters sang about their emotions alone on stage in a form of introspection which were really a treat to the eyes in the form of their acting and to the ears too as they all sang so beautifully. Through the play, not only was acting talent exhibited but also a lot of credit for how the whole event was conducted. Believe it or not, there was a live orchestration playing backstage complete with electric and bass guitars, keyboards and drums. So, synchronizing the music while the actors sang on stage was also a crucial part of the play. Thus, it was altogether a huge success and suited well to be 'the' platform for exhibiting talent. Come to think of it, I don’t think any of these actors were professionals and all; they were just youths in the age group of 20-25 enjoying practicing drama as a hobby. I enjoyed the show to the fullest and got a couple of snaps of important scenes like the last supper and that of the crown of thorns being placed on Jesus’ head for the memory of how much I enjoyed the play. Well… as an amateur to the idea I can popularize the theatre performance only by writing a blog of my experience or by word of mouth, but all I can say is that this play has instilled in me a great interest for drama and a nice new hobby. A pleasant prospect…