A comedy Hindi play, ‘Andher Nagri’ was staged here on Monday at Shaheed Bhavan Auditorium leaving the audience enthralled with by the mesmerizing performance.The play was presented by the artists of Children’s Theatre Academy under a three-day theatre festival organized by the academy.
The play was written by Bhartendu Harishchandra and is directed by Vaishali Gupta. The story goes around a kingdom named Andher Nagri ruled by foolish king, the rules and laws of the kingdom were very strange. Everything had an equal cost be it fruit or some other commodity.
One day a saint and his disciple entered the city and found it very strange, sensing something suspicious, the saint leaves the city but being materialistic, his disciple remained there to face the future consequences. Once a goat died in the kingdom, the king being very cynical summons the whole city so as to punish the real culprit.
The blame was shifted to one and the other. Eventually on very illogical grounds, policeman is found guilty but, when he was being hanged; his neck did not match the size of the noose. King orders to find a person who fits the size so as to give the justice to the goat’s death. Disciple’s neck fits that size and thus was sentenced to death. He calls his Guru for the help. Sensing the king’s foolishness, saint weaves a false story which tempts the king to die so as to attain Moksha.
While talking about the play, director Vaishali Gupta said, “Bhartendu wrote this play during the British era but, he never thought that the condition of nation would remain the same. It is a comic play which gives out many messages. Staging Andher Nagri was more like an experiment for me”. In a very hilarious manner, the play teaches us many things, she added.
The audiences were enthralled by the performance given by the tiny tots on stage. They enjoyed the show whole heartedly. The audience burst out laughing as the situational comedy was being staged. A satirical play was wondrously performed with sensible light design, accurate costumes and stage craft.