Clichés rule. With time they change.
Ruling clichés change. So you have Malini (Shabana) asking Manjula ( Shabana
again) about being a split personality, person with mental functional disorder
etc. It is even more challenging to keep an audience engrossed in the midst of
clichés . Kudos to Alyque Padamsee and of course hats off to the awesome
Shabana Azmi. On stage, Shabana reiterates what a wonderful actress she is on
screen!! Credit to Alyque for understanding Shabana’s superior talent on screen
and making great use of it in the context of a script written by Girish Karnad.
As an alternative, a Director could have switched a single persona from stand
points ( positions) and told the same story. However Broken Images points to
the fact that Shabana is more at home with cinema than drama. The script helps
to reiterate Shabana’s superior artistry by presenting her even on stage
through screen. This is not to suggest that Shabana as a heroine in a play or
the play is bad. Far from it. However unlike in cinema she is not the best. As
Manjula who is basking in the glory of success, she visits the sets of a TV
channel which is about to telecast a Hindi adaptation of her English best
seller. She is there to preface the telecast. She gets caught in a psycho
conversation …….
The hour long play deals exclusively with Manjula and refers to her physically
challenged sibling Malini who died recently of Meningo myelocoel. Other
refereals are her husband Pramod ( a soft ware Engineer in the USA), her old
friend Lucy , the nurse and none else. The conversation between Manjula the
writer and an image speaking through the TV is what Broken Images is all about.
It is always challenging to be the only character taking on a play. It needs a
persona with Shabana like timbre to take on the challenge. IN the context of
comparing her deliverables on screen and only in that context, is Shabana the
play actress , the second best. Also in comparison to her performances in Safed
Kundali and Tumhari Amrita, she is a little off key.
However to a city starved of professional stage, the play is engrossing and
Shabana intrinsically qualitative. She suffers only by the standards she sets.
The production is simple, the flow effortless.
For Hyderabad Wednesday must have been a very special day: Malladi Brothers,
Pandit Jasraj and Shabana Azmi!! What more can a city yearning for cultural
events ask for. Thanks Times, for giving the city some quality hours.
Finally the evening at the play belonged exclusively to Shabana If you forget
the very picture perfect start, that speaks more of good rehearsals than an
emotional appeal, Shabana comes into her own like a master batsman, who settles
down after a few edges to deliver some punch filled stoke play. She made the
Hyderabadi audience even more happy with the announcement that she is born in
Hyderabad.
As the anchor on TV Shabana has ample opportunity to restate that she is
nonpareil . As the guilt filled sister justifying her personality there is a
shade of Tehzeeb and 15 Park Avenu At a time when actresses fight for footage
in films and get a few minutes in the bargain, Kudos to this acting genius- she
can steal the show from herself.
L.Ravichander