A Hindi play ‘Saari Raat’ was staged at Shaheed Bhavan auditorium on Wednesday. Saari Raat, written by the eminent late playwright Badal Sircar, is a psychological drama that revolves around a woman. As the title suggests, it is the story of a single night and three characters- a husband, a wife and an old man.
At one level, the play is an intimate story about a woman trapped in a world defined for her and symbolised by her marriage and on the other, it is about the possibilities we are afraid of openly voicing, the pitfalls of our inner discoveries and accepting real selves.
The play is directed by Shachindra Shrivastava and was brilliantly performed by the artists of Surbhi Art and Cultural Welfare Society.
During a heavy raining night a young couple seeks shelter in an old creaky mysterious house. Amidst shabby surroundings, strange happenings, echoes and loud laughter, enters an old man who claims to be the owner of the house and allows them to stay over for the night. The old man possesses an uncanny flair of interpreting people’s thoughts and lives.
He has his own inscrutable theory surrounding the number ‘Seven’ based on which he explains them the different stages of their life that leaves the couple dumbstruck.
Unlike the young man who has an average set of expectations and desires from life that any common man would have, the young woman seems to be living in a world of her own. Her thoughts revolve inside the walls of the dream that she has weaved for herself through the years.
She comes face-to-face with her innermost desires as flakes of her dream start surfacing during her conversation with the old man. This makes her suspect supernatural presence in the house.
The play was brilliantly performed and the acting skills were much appreciated by the Bhopal theatre buffs.