A royal treat to watch

Falah Faisal

What a month it has been for theatre aficionados in the city. With Ranga Shakara running packed shows the whole of July with audiences piling in for Motley Productions 44th anniversary run that saw them produce five plays back to back. But all good things must come to an end, and the theatrical extravaganza concluded with Satyadev Dubey’s Dear Liar which dramatizes three decades long correspondence between the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw and the English actress Beatrice Stella Campbell.

The roles essayed by veterans Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah starts when Stella is a well known actress and Bernard Shaw is still a struggling writer as he courts her star as the lead in his latest play Pygmalion. It shows the struggles they endure with the refined Stella having to pick up a cockney accent and the delays caused when she meets with an accident during the rehearsal. The dramatization of letters is done in a rather unique way with the actors speaking to each other from windows while the other reads and there is not a dull moment.

Naseer and Ratna play off each other constantly jibing at each other trying to outdo one another with wit. Act I comes to an end with the performance of Pygmalion which turns out to be Bernard Shaw’s most successful play and Stella reveals how she married another on the day of the premiere.

Act II takes a darker turn with the commencement of the First World War which forced their play to close prematurely. George Bernard Shaw goes off on a lecture tour of pacifism while Stella Campbell takes their play to America when she finds out that her son has been killed during the war. Their correspondence as well gets strained during the period as they drift apart.

Things aren’t good for Stella as the parts become scarce as she ages as an actress and sinks into decrepitude which forces her to publish their letters as means to make money, much to Bernard’s dismay which has him edit out most of the best parts fearing the damage it might cause to his marriage and image. And old age finally gets to them as they fall ill and share tips to each other about how to heal until Stella's death in 1940. Naseer and Ratna traverse a 30 year period with ease, with nothing but dialogue and body language to show the passing of the years.

One is completely enamoured by their natural chemistry that is the result of having worked together for decades that creates a perfect mesh for the characters of the play as well. It's a case of art and life walking hand in hand as they get a standing ovation as the curtain comes down