Adapting Moliere’s l’avare in Hindi, Alliance Francaise de Delhi celebrates the rich culture of India and France on its 60th anniversary. Team Viva reports
While Moliere’s l’avare has been adapted in many forms and dialects over time, it is apt to say that the French dramatist is relevant in any time or context. Recently, at the 60th year celebration of Alliance Francaise de Delhi, a group of students and teachers of the Alliance Francaise performed a Hindi adaptation. “When we decided to mount the play, we didn’t think of it as a challenge. It is because his plays are written so smooth. Though they were written in the 1600s, they are easily relevant in the present and contextual,” said director Soma Sundaram. l’avare was loosely based on the latin comedy Aulularia by Plautus, from which many incidents and scraps of dialogue are borrowed, as well as from contemporary Italian farces.
Soma has always appreciated the works of Moliere and compares him to Shakespeare. “Shakespeare always chose aristocracy as the backdrop of his writings. But Moliere talked about common people. Every theme of his play revolves around people like us. That is one of the reasons I regard him as ‘evergreen’,” he said.
Though planned three months ago, the play subtly hinted on the current demonetisation scenario in the country. “We didn’t plan it that way. Neither did we make any changes in the script. Still it oddly seemed congruent,” chuckled the director.
The play revolves around Mirza Sekhawat Beg, the incorrigible miser, who is besotted with Mariam, the love of his wastrel son, Farookh.
“The actors in the play are not very experienced. While some of them are teachers at Alliance, others are students learning French. Despite not having much experience, I believe they made for a good show,” said Soma. However, the Hindi adaptation did have a scene performed in French. “Since they all are acquainted with the language, it was not much of a problem,” he added.
Sitting in the crowd and laughing throughout the play was Jean Francois Ramon, director, Alliance Francaise. “Honestly, apart from the French bits, I was unable to understand anything.
Yet, the expressions of the actors made me laugh. And that’s preciously the point of theatre I believe. A person should be able to connect with it no matter which language it is performed in,” he said.
Ramon also emphasised the need for similar interactive experiments. “The main objective of ours is to become a bridge between the two very rich cultures of the world, India and France. Both the countries have a lot in their culture and history. And what can be a better way to explore it
than through the media of art and music,” he concluded.