Oru Kadhai Oru Kolai — Good theme gone astray

Vivkeshankar’s latest play Oru Kadhai Oru Kolai, Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The very title Oru Kadhai Oru Kolai is suggestive of a thriller. But Prayatna Theatre’s latest play (story, dialogues and direction by K. Vivekshankar, didn’t crackle with suspense. It plodded along sedately, like an elderly woman out for a stroll.

Dharmaraj (Girish Ayyappath) an out-of-work detective, two youngsters who work for him gratis, Padma who comes in to clean and cook for Dharma and her daughter who is dissatisfied with her job — these are the characters around whom the story revolves. .

One day, a client arrives at Dharma’s doorstep, except that this unexpected visitor is an amnesiac ghost! The ghost wants to know who is responsible for her death. Then begins the investigation, and a woman who deals with ghosts is brought in to help. This scene was an embarrassment.

A scene from Prayatna Theatre’s play Oru Kadhai Oru Kolai, Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

One began to wonder what the playwright was trying to get at through this play. If it was intended to be just a funny play, it failed, because only a few scenes were mildly funny. At last, at the end came the message.

Ignore mental illness at your own peril. Unfortunately, society views depression as something to be frowned upon, and so people throw a cloak over mental illnesses, hoping they will go away. They won’t, and that is the point Vivekshankar wanted to make.

A good theme, indeed. But the meaningless route he took to get to this was puzzling. Take, for instance, Padma’s reaction to her daughter’s death. She is chirpy within a few days, although she has single handedly raised her only child from infancy. And when compensation for the girl’s death comes, she beams! Vivekshankar has given some very good plays in the past. It was hugely disappointing and unbelievable that this play came from him.