There was dancing, there had to be, come on – it was Grease after all, and there was singing – some high quality,  serious a** kicking singing, and there was a lot of fun. A lot of it.

Jim Jacob’s and Warren Casey’s 1971 musical, based on a high school in 1950s "greasers" – the working class kids of America at the time as they were known, is an absolute charmer of a production and also a tough nut to crack. But Laila Alvares’s production did perfect justice to the play and the sheer vibrancy that made Grease- Grease and Travolta- Travolta in the film version.

Anyone who follows theatre in Bangalore knows all too well of Laila Alvares’s penchant for musicals and her ability to pull them off with tremendous style and aplomb. This one is no exception either. It leaves you with the kind of energy and buoyancy that you have been longing to see on the stage.

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Korean performing group TUIDA has kindly shared with DramaDose some interesting insights on their award-winning production The Tale Of Haruk, which recently played in Chennai and Bangalore to packed audiences.

In conversation with HeeJin Lee, the associate producer and tour manager of TUIDA.

Shuchi: What was the inspiration for the story of The Tale Of Haruk?

TUIDA: There was a character in the Korean old folk tale, which ate everything made of steel. We started from that character and put several motifs of old stories together in this story.

Shuchi: The Tale Of Haruk has sombre undertones; it isn’t uniformly cheery as children’s plays tend to be. The night of Haruk’s transformation is rather spooky. Did you have any qualms at all that the script might be too heavy or scary for children to handle?

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Is that a bucket, a movie camera or the head of a cow? A cup of coffee, a phone or flowers in a temple? Objects in this play transmogrify, and how! If for nothing else, this play is a must-watch for the inventiveness of its props.

But there is a lot else to watch Perch’s Miss Meena for. A superb set of actors who double as singers, instrumentalists (not to mention winged moths). The hallmark of great acting is to stand out even when you’re doing nothing. Witness "Ravi Anna" become a statue to see what I mean.

Miss Meena‘s script is loosely based on The Visit by Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt. A major shift from the original is in making the play revolve around films. This gives a lot of scope for crowd-pleasing parodying of movie clichés. Early on is a sequence of auditions for a film to be shot in the village – Ravi Anna’s rendition of a film climax complete with gunfire is to die for.

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Never before have I seen Ranga Shankara so full, so agog with chatter. People sat on the steps, children (who made up a large share of the audience) took great persuasion from their guardians to settle down, groups that sat separated talked excitedly with each other across the aisles.

With that kind of anticipation and turnout, began The Tale Of Haruk.

The Tale Of Haruk is a Korean play aimed at children. Performed by TUIDA, the play is in Korean. Subtitles in English were displayed on screens on either side of the stage. Not that many subtitles were needed: the play does not have many dialogues. Of what is there, a lot of it is made up of the single word – “haruk”.

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Distant events gleam brighter when seen through the lens of memory, so they say. In writing of a play watched 18 years ago, I may be guilty of over-enthusiasm but for me, Starlight Express, a school production directed by Aamir Raza Hussain, is still the most spectacular play ever.

The play was based on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock musical, a sort of cross between Toy Story and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (Starlight Express,1984, predates both). Starlight Express is the quintessential underdog tale set in the world of toy trains: Rusty, the steam train, is ridiculed for being not fast enough by the "villains" – Greaseball, the posturing diesel locomotive and Electra, the slick new electric train. Starlight Express is the midnight train, a metaphor for God, that the other trains trust and look up to (while some question its existence). The play culminates in a high-energy, beautifully orchestrated race between the trains.

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The stage is pitch dark when a fireman walks onto stage. A light comes on. Other firemen troop in through unusual entrances (the side and top audience exits), take position, and the spotlight moves to another part of the stage .

When a surprising declaration is made, the moment is emphasized by abrupt darkening. When there is confusion, the lights quiver gently. When alarm, the curtain behind rises to reveal a wall-sized screen with a huge red silhouette. At the end, what remains is darkness broken by candlelight.

Fire spells destruction in the hands of arsonists who plague the unnamed city in this play, but the brilliant use of lighting serves to remind that fire can also mean light; we choose what it will be.

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How should an artist respond to a critic’s negative response to their work, especially if they think the critic has got it wrong? When dealing with brickbats, is it fair of an artist to expect other artists to rally behind in support, simply because they are of the same fraternity?

The recent spat between actor-playwright Leslie Jordan and theatre critic Elisabeth Vincentelli has been rather ugly, and it has raised many such questions about the nature of conversations between artist and critic, between artist and artist.

The Indian theatre scene is bereft of all such wars. I wonder if that is something to be pleased about or worried about. Better rows over well thought-out criticism than verbatim reproductions of the play’s promotional text, I say!

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