Play Review: Candida

·         Director : Vishesh Arora

·         Writer : George Bernard Shaw

·         Duration : 1 hr 15 mins

·         Genre : Drama ( Romantic Comedy)

Miss Proserpine Garnett played by Lovelinna Sharma
The Reverend James Mavor Morell played by Sarthak Mattoo
The Reverend Alexander (Lexy) Mill played by Nihaal Parashar
Mr Burgess played by Adhiraja
Candida played by Shivani Nagar,
Eugene Marchbanks played by Shivam Khanna

Written by the Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw (Also the Co-founder of London School of Economics), the story involves Candida, wife of a Clergyman (Reverend James). Candida (falls in love with a youthful poet, Eugene March banks, who try to win Candida.  The story gets complicated when Candida has to choose between her husband and the Poet. The play questions Love, marriage, desires and the sacrifices a women makes. The script is crisp and has the flavor of Bernard’s writing rich with sarcastic humor on society, people behavior, relationships. There has been numerous adaptation of the play worldwide, attaining the claim of ‘Romantic-Comedy’ or Rom-coms

But what happens when a Indian Actors try to do a Classic English play (with Indian Accent) set in Early 1980. Yes you got it right utter chaos.

Lesser known Curtain Call Productions performed this Play in Delhi In Alliance Francaise In July 2013).

The director of the play took the script as-is from Bernard Shaw writing. There are a number of instances James makes his socialist remarks about the state of affairs (which unfortunately go over the head for most Non-Economic People unrelated to the economic scenario of 1890 British Era). There is an intense scene between the poet Eugene and James where the poet confesses his love for his wife. The overall plot when portrayed looks similar to a Bollywood masala having a love triangle.  The actors transition from a perfect brit to Indian accent which looks ridiculous.

Candida played by Shivani Nagar was the saving grace as she kept her character throughout the play. The others were too fast in their delivery of dialogues and wanted to leave the stage.Overall the play was average, with the humor element scattered in bits.