Indian poet-playwright Gopi Warrier’s two plays, Ego of the Yogis and Polyester lordship, are are being staged at the Steiner Theatre in london
UK-based Indian poet-playwright Gopi Warrier’s two plays — Ego of the Yogis and Polyester lordship — have evoked rave reviews in london.
Dealing with corporate responsibility and the search for spirituality reflecting contemporary times, the plays are being staged at the Steiner Theatre since April 1. Directed by Alex Crampton, the cast includes leading British actors Sarah Hall, Tim Heath, Sanjive Hayre (who has acted as Jawaharlal Nehru), lloyd Morris, Gillian Kirkpatrick, Tim Hilborne and Paul Piggott. On selected days there are discussions with writers, intellectuals, corporate leaders and spiritual teachers on the issues raised in the play. The premiere was marked by a brief talk by Sir Andrew likierman, the Dean of london Business School and a Director of the Bank of England and Barclays Bank during the interval.
An alumnus of london Business School, Warrier moved to Britain from Kerala after completing his graduation.
He conceptualised both the plays. Polyester lordship portrays the absence of corporate social responsibility to workers and consumers in the often-corrupt world of international business, while Ego of the Yogis is a more regretful yet romantic evocation of the search for true love and of the contamination of yoga and spirituality in the Western world and in India.
The highlight in the play Ego of the Yogis is it’s for the first time that the great Sage Adi Shankara’s famous Sanskrit poem Kanakadhara Stavam — which he recites in the house of a poor woman who gives him alms — is sung on the theatre stage in london. Another important showpiece in the Ego of the Yogis is how the latest Japanese research mathematically proves the illusory nature of the world as the Hindus always believed.