jab dil hi toot gaya, ham jee ke kya karenge

I watched “K.L. Saigal - a musical play” yesterday. It was staged as part of ongoing theatre festival “Drama in October” at Ranga Shankara. Play narrated story of legendary singer Kundan Lal Saigal, in the form of a musical.

Theatre is one of the toughest forms of media. The story is narrated in live, with minimal technical help. What you see is what you get. There is absolutely no trick anywhere; no scope for mistake too. Actor toil their days and nights to prepare for performance of one night. Their effort fruit if they could portray the character on stage. The best of actors live their character and make the audience feel its life.

Yesterday was one such performance. Portraying Saigal, or rather living is no easy job. He being legendry adds to the pressure on the actor. But Uday Chandra was simply superb in his attempt. I have not seen Saigal, but I can surely vouch the fact that yesterday the performance was no less that Saigal’s reincarnation. Being a musical play, the actor was expected to be well versed in music. And trust me Uday had done his home work to perfection. He sang all the songs, no audio tape used throughout. Audience was mesmerized on his velvet voice and magical control over his tone. I am sure he must be a trained Classical singer, for this perfection is really hard to achieve.
The play narrates almost the whole life of Saigal, its ups and downs. For more than two hours, the audience was just traveling in past and watching everything as if a reality.

Tom Altar was narrator for the play, and he was as usual brilliant. His solid voice gives one classy touch to the play.

Great acting, superb direction and beautiful setup.

Only glitch was that it was too long for most of the audience. A play for 150 minutes is rare experience and thus everyone starts losing his patience.

Still, anything for such a memorable experience.

Play details on Ranga Shankara website