Crazy Mohan Creations
Report By Ramani Ramakrishnan
Ramani Ramakrishnan expresses dismay over Crazy Mohan’s thinly executed stand-up comedies, disguised as full length plays......
Madhil Mel Madhu and Jurassic Baby
Tamil Dramas by Crazy Mohan; 8 June 2002, 5 p.m. Sir John A. McDonald Collegiate Auditorium, Toronto, Ontario
Confessions are good for the soul. So let me begin with a confession. Theatre (or drama as some call it) is my first love among the arts. I still remember playing the role of the freedom fighter Veera Pandiya Kattabomman during my junior high school in a small village in South India. I have been hooked on it ever since. From a small town play to Cho, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Stoppard, Chekov - it has been a joyous life-long experience. I hope to direct Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead before I die. So I can’t stomach half-hearted efforts at drama even if it is purported to be a full-length comedy play. Now you will understand my utter disappointment and revolt against the double bill of Tamil plays presented by a troupe called Crazy Creations in Toronto. We must all be crazed to spend four precious hours (or was it five or six if one includes the lateness, introduction, unscheduled monologue by Mohan himself) at an offering called drama. To call it drama would be an utter insult to the entire theatre world.
I don’t think I want to waste time, yours or mine, describing the two plays. We shall forget for the moment the utter political incorrectness of the plays. The "jokes" - racist, sexist and demeaning to the lower castes - were in sheer bad tatse. Let me just point out the litany of deficiencies in these two offerings and that should suffice.
First and foremost is the fact that the half-dozen or so, who made up the group sauntered into the auditorium around 5.15 p.m. The play was scheduled to start at 5 p.m.) The necessary adjustments and the parsimonious stage settings began after that. I am used to theatre groups, both amateur and professional, rehearsing in the auditorium a few times before the actual performance day. The excuse by the visiting South Asian group was that the group is so flexible that they can adapt to any location! This smacks of unprofessional hubris. And you say, I quibble. At least come early on that day, become familiar with the stage and its ambience so that minor debacles can be avoided. In actual fact, one of the mikes went dead at a critical juncture in the second play and the play lost its momentum after that. A well deserved divine justice indeed!
The titles of the two plays had absolutely no relevance to the actual events on the stage. A case in point - Jurassic Baby conjures up images of an alien child, however, in the play, it is just an overgrown child. At least some relevance like the baby in Gunther Grass’ Tin Drum would have had resonance with the audience.
Finally, what is the difference between stand-up-comedy and Crazy Creations? None, except that stand-up-comedy lasts about 10-15 minutes per set and one gets a break. Basically, the two plays are nothing but a set of persons (to call them actors would demean the entire profession) standing in front and up-close to four mikes and reciting one liners. No acting absolutely and where does it say that emotions are conveyed only when one raises one’s voice! Most of the jokes were forced, flat and downright puerile. For this some people paid $50!
The two plays presented seem to have evolved from a few sitting around Crazy Mohan and his one-liners and deciding on the plotline to fit the jokes. They remind me of the absurd play, Six Actors Looking for an Author, by the Italian playwright Pirandello. Perhaps we should rename these two offerings Six Thousand, Flat, One-liner Jokes Looking for a Storyline. Let me remind Crazy Mohan that having a few stand-up-comics in front of mikes regurgitating one-liners does not make a play. It needs plot, storyline, character development and something essential called acting.
We in Toronto are very lucky to have a Tamil playwright in the guise of V. Raghuraman. Even the amateur actors of his Toronto group ‘Agraharam Productions’ seem to understand what theatre means and perform admirably. His plays are far superior to the thrash offered by Crazy Creations. Folks, we don’t need to spend an arm and a leg to bring such inanities as Crazy Creations from across the seas. Let us encourage the local talent and provide ample support. What would be ironic and actually fitting is the following scenario - Let Agraharam Productions and Raghuraman create a strong repertory of a few plays, rehearse them thoroughly and take it for a tour of Tamil Nadu and the Tamil enclaves of Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkotta and Delhi. Let the Tamils in India, for a change, pay a tidy sum to watch these good plays by the NRIs. This would prove that Tamil theatre is alive and well among the diaspora, even though it seems to have died in Tamil Nadu, India.
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