A Black Sunday For Black Humour
The storyline of ‘The Graduate’ goes like this…
When Benjamin Braddock graduates from a small Eastern college and moves home to his parents’ house, everyone wants to know what he’s going to do with his life. Embittered by the emptiness of his college education and indifferent to his grim prospects — grad school? a career in plastics? — Benjamin falls haplessly into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the relentlessly seductive wife of his father’s business partner. It’s only when beautiful coed Elaine Robinson comes home to visit her parents that Benjamin, now smitten, thinks he might have found some kind of direction in his life. Unfortunately for Benjamin, Mrs. Robinson plays the role of protective mother as well as she does the one of mistress. A wondrously fierce and absurd battle of wills ensues, with love and idealism triumphing over the forces of corruption and conformity.
(Courtesy: Amazon.com)
Last Sunday I witnessed a macabre massacre. It proved to be a dark day in the history of black humour, and many thespians of theatre will agree with me. An amateur director took Charles Webb’s ‘The Graduate’ and reduced a classic piece of black humour to a caricature of its original self! The result was frivolous slapstick and a housefull of audience who laughed like banshees and missed the finer nuances of the script. Not their fault, since the subtle nuances were already lost in the process of direction.
I could have been watching a Goan ‘tiatr’ which is slapstick personified. A slap on the face of the theatre film fraternity…I’m sure Mr. Webb would wince with shock to see such liberties being taken with insightful literature had been present in the auditorium.
The biggest draw of the play, turned out to be a damp squib. A yesteryears Bollywood siren was cast in the role of the alluring and stylish Mrs. Robinson. No doubt, this was an opportunity to resurrect herself from the clutches of Bollywood oblivion. But instead of the siren, one sees a frumpy, pot-bellied woman who in no way epitomizes the role of Mrs. Robinson. And it isn’t her fault if she couldn’t carry off the role of relentless seductress because every actress is a director’s heroine and if she makes a mess of it, it is either because she is miscast or misdirected. In this case it was the former.
All actors maybe accused of overacting, save the gentleman who played the role of Mr. Robinson. He could mildly hold his own and portray the role of the vexed husband who has been wronged owing to his wife’s extra-marital dalliances with a man half her age and who happens to be her friend’s son!
I surfed the net for a genuine critique of the play, but all I found were feature stories glorifying the elements. A yesteryears actress returns to the stage, a
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Hey Love: Good job. Like the way you put. You reek of American sarcasm in writing this review. A fine job of writing dripping with sarcasm. I think, this review is worth publishing. Send it to JLT. Buy a copy of it, look for the editor’s address on the second page. Email her and tell her, you want this review published. Rs 500 is what you will be paid. Money spent gets refunded and you can take me out to dinner at Lemon Grass. Adios, my buddy!