Murder, political and otherwise

In their latest production, Pancham Vaidic sifts through French existentialist playwright Jean-Paul Sartre���s Les Mains Sales or Dirty Hands or Crime Passionnel, which deals with themes of idealism versus realism, philosophical beliefs against political convictions and love as opposed to lust. While the group quite manages to present the content of the play on stage, the essence of this highly opinionated piece is compromised right from Scene I Act I of the drama. The play revolves around Hugo (Siddhartha), a 20-something member of an underground Communist party, who perceives the world in black and white, or perhaps, red and white. He has been assigned the job to kill Hoederer, the leader of the party in the fictitious European town of Illyria. Plotted as a political murder, Hugo���s modus operandi doesn���t fail to resemble a crime of passion. Siddhartha is believable as long as you focus on his ���existential attitude��� ��� a prominent feature in Sartre���s works ��� which highlights his agony in times of confusion. The actor brings out the idealistic trait in Hugo rather convincingly, as he whines through most of the play.
Arpita Ghosh, who has translated the play into Bengali and plays Hugo���s wife, Jessica, seems to have confused the existentialist play with an absurdist drama because her acting is way over-the-top. Unlike the one in Sartre���s work ��� arguably one of the most gripping characters in the play ��� Arpita���s Jessica is ungraceful and seemingly mindless! Paromita as Hugo���s fellow comrade, Olga, is loud and there���s no dramatic redemption for the character as she is left without anything meaningful to do. The star of the play is Babu Datta Roy as Hoederer who steals the show with his commanding baritone and strong body language.
The prominent let down comes in the form of the mother-tongueinfluence or MTI in dialogue delivery which plagues three of the four pivotal actors. So, you hear pronunciations such as ���choc-oolate���, ���assassina-tion���, ���oyedaar (read: whether) he is phit (fit) for salbhej (salvage)��� and ���daai-rect (direct) action��� quite frequently and it comes across as jarring.
A nice big chunk of the play���s duration is wasted on voice-overs which try to connect the dots between the Acts only to test the audience���s patience. But on the positive side, the stage props and set designing are impressive and help create the post World War II ambience.
Word of advice: Watch out for Sartre���s genius, don���t assassinate your time waiting for the dramatic spark, which never comes.