Timeless Romance:
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s story, White Nights (1848) has been adapted so many times on screen over the decades, that it has almost become a generic love triangle. Still, Purva Naresh working with the story for her production, Chandni Raatein (the second play of Aadyam’s Season 7), has blended its timelessness with music, dance, humour, and whimsy to present something fresh and quite delightful.
She has set her play in St. Petersburg, where Dostoevsky placed his story, the costumes are Russian, the language in Hindi with a smattering of Russian, but it does not look or sound odd. Purva has taken the bare bones of the story and added her own layers. Correctly surmising that today’s generation would have no patience for soppy love stories or heartbreak, she has retained the feel of melancholy yearning, but also treated it with a light, dream-like touch. Because, loneliness is not confined to any particular time or place.
In a bar, where a one-sided romance is underway between the bartender-singer Asha (Shimli Basu) and her Indian admirer (Kaustav Sinha) in danger of being deported, a stranger, who calls himself Fyodor, and is later referred to as Premi (Danish Husain) buys vodka shots for everyone, and tells them a story.
A failed writer, who has strong views on the oppression of the poor, and nobody to talk to but the buildings of the city –nameless in the original story–is called Deewana (Mantra Mugdh) by Purva. One evening, as the city celebrates four nights of “rajat raatein” when dusk falls, but the sun does seem to set, he spots a woman standing forlornly on a bridge.
Saving her from the unwanted approach of a drunk, he starts a conversation with her, in spite of his shyness, and discovers that Nastenka (Girija Oak Godbole) is waiting for the man she loves, who promised, a year ago, to return from Moscow and meet her at the bridge during the four white nights. She has learnt that he is in the city, but has made no move to contact her. So she has planned to wait on the bridge, hoping that he will keep his word.
She is kind towards the timid Deewana with his trembling hands, and accepts his friendship with the warning that he must not fall in love with her. But of course he does, and sets himself up for disappointment. There is a confusion about a letter, a woman (Anamika Tiwari), intervenes with good intentions, and changes what might have been the course of the story.
The set (Kushal Mahant) beautifully portrays the bridge that is like a grand motif in the story, the bar, and Deewana’s bare home, as the light design (Sanket Parkhe and Asmit Pathare), enhances the mood. At one side of the stage, the musicians are seated, and a living statue appears as a witness to the story. A chorus passing cheeky comments follows the main leads. Nastenska’s blind grandmother (Trupti Khamkar) has her moment in the spotlight too.
Purva has used snatches of well-known poems, the music (Kaizad Gherda) encompassing various genres, perfectly punctuates the scenes. Among the cast of actors fitting right into their roles, Mantra Mugdh and Girija Oak Godbole bring out the emotions lyrically written by Purva Naresh, and make the audience root for them. In today’s world Deewana would be considered a loser, but the narrator says in the Dostoevsky story, “May your sky be always clear, may your dear smile be always bright and happy, and may you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart … Good Lord, only a moment of bliss? Isn’t such a moment sufficient for the whole of a man’s life?”
(This piece first appeared in mumbaitheatreguide.com)