I went for an after party thrown by the Torn Curtains to celebrate the end of a wonderful evening…so what if they did not drive home with any awards, they were clear that they had performed well, used a good script and supported a good cause.

I liked that…that after all is the spirit of theatre…

but the evening had two disappointments. One was trivial – the samosas came late but the other was serious…the MCing Duo – Rahul and Prashant were the sour taste to an otherwise good evening. And not even pure slapstick saved them from the embarrassment.

First of all, there was hardly a connect between the two, leave alone a connect with the audience…plus the clash of accents was atrocious…Prashant’s Waltair twang marinated with an English wannabe and a recently Shakespeared warble vs. Rahul’s clipped content…OMG…avoidable to say the least.

What made it worse was the knowledge that both of them are two of the finest actors I have seen in a long time and personal friends…but WTF, obviously it was a bad hair day

The first play of the evening was Friends…a play of emotions and class disparities that had Firoze written on every action, every reaction and every move…it was almost as if the Director had cloned himself to perform the two roles…and a wow performance was but natural. And the two walked away with the acting honours and Firoze pipped every one else to Best Director.

But it was the Dramanon production of ‘The Good Doctor, Version 217’ that was the surprise package.

Dramanon has evolved and has raised the bar on its own performance. The set design and the choreographed set changes were pure ‘muska’. The way RK held onto the audience and led them through his stories was exemplary…good, clear diction…commanding stage presence…take a bow RK…

Saurabh in his variations was nothing short of brilliant and he would have won the audience poll if there was one…Harika got her cerificate of excellence, but she should quickly get tips on how to be heard when she is shouting…an art that very few have mastered…and therefore were sacrificed at the altar of understanding. But her body more than made up for her cacophony and languaged her into our heart…as a prostitute, a complaining wife and so on.

The last play committed the mistake of writing into the script, the basic fault of the play…6 hours was too long a torture for the boys on stage, but it was worse for the audience…I could actually feel myself wishing for time to move faster, so that the show could come to an end.

Other than the performers…The lighting of the lamp that paid homage to the late Badri Vishal Pittie was a very nice touch though I was left with a feeling that to an audience who mostly consisted of people new to Hyderabad, a few words about the man may have been in place.

The NIFT speciality of watching performances through a cloud of mosquitoes hovering above the head of the girl in the seat ahead of you continues. And their errant AC was working overtime yesterday, so we had a lot of people rubbing their hands when they should have  actually been clapping them.

Radhika’s spritely enthusiasm was obvious and the whole felicitation of the dignitaries and thanking her friends and family was done from the heart…with pretensions not allowed in for the show. Keep it up Radhika…Congrats on the second edition of AYNA…look forward to many more.

Overall, as I said, a good evening…good vibes…and I was introduced to a lady ‘Kriti’, a part of the Torn Curtains gang…who is a specialist…and she choreographed Mala’s breast. Now, is that a chore close to the heart or what