By Benjamin Yadav
Theater goers watched drama unfold at the Bharat Bhavan on Tuesday in a production of English playwright J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls.
The play was part of Rangotsav theater festival this month, which continues every night until Sunday. Actors and crews stage a different play each evening.
An almost full auditorium observed a Hindi performance of the play originally set in England in 1912. The play is a moral exploration, in which an inspector investigating the suicide of a young woman forces a well-to-do family to face responsibility for her death, and with it their consciences.
The setting was not the stayed, stiff environment of wealthy Georgian England, but a more tropical, high life India. The patriarch, dry and industrious in the original, is warm and vibrant, while still stern, wearing a gold dotted tie. The women wear brightly colored saris and the son and daughter’s fiance sport glossy suits.
In the background, soothing Spanish guitar music plays and a case full of wine and whisky stand at the back of the set. They are poured throughout the scenes. The setting reminiscent of Goa feels a long way from the fictional town of Brumley in England’s north Midlands.
The inspector was unmistakable, and would fit in well to any film noir, in a long dark coat, tribly hat and with cigarette in hand.
Even though the setting differed from the original, the play’s class commentary was germane.
The girl who commits suicide is from a poor background and her situation worsens gradually due to the thoughtless, uncaring actions of the family.
With the inspector probing for answers we find the father, an industrialist, had the girl in question fired from his factory. Then, the daughter caused the girl to be fired from her following job as a sales assistant at a clothing store, having complained to the store’s manager due to jealousy over the girl’s good looks.
The son and daughter’s fiance both treated the girl poorly in separate love affairs and the mother, who works for a women’s charity, obstructed the girl from receiving financial help.
The Inspector summarizes that in a shared society “fire and blood and anguish” will result from such callous behavior.
The moral of the story: equality is desirable. Injustice is damaging and should be avoided at all costs.
The play was directed by Sharad Sharma and translated by Surendra Sharma and Pratima Sharma.
