Dayashankar Ki Diary: A class apart

Plot: Written by

Nadira Babbar

,

Dayashankar Ki Diary

is the story of a small town man from Uttar Pradesh who comes to Mumbai to pursue his Bollywood dreams but ends up in a clerical job in a government office. In a few months, Daya gets fed up with the daily humdrum of his job and his inability to chase his dream takes a toll on him. He gets lost in the mad rush of the city and finds solace in daydreaming. He starts weaving a web of fantasies and eventually gets trapped in them, slowly loosing touch with reality. From falling in love with a MLA’s daughter, Sonia to gauging her feelings for him by befriending her dog Softy, Daya gradually loses his mental stability. What happens when he comes to know of Sonia’s wedding and how the news effects his life for the worse, is what the play is all about.

Review: Ashish Vidyarthi has been performing this 80-minute soliloquy since the play’s first staging in Mumbai in the 1980s. The other credits may have changed hands over the years, but Ashish has lived the character of Daya, every time the play is staged. And his comfort level was evident from the word go as the veteran got the audience hooked from the first scene itself. And as he flipped through Daya’s diary, one page at a time, his acting skills came to the fore. The National Award winner dished out an acting masterclass with flawless voice modulation, immersive facial expressions and immaculate stage antics that took the audience on an emotional roller coaster ride. For instance, the way he swayed while delivering his dialogues in a scene where Dayashankar is travelling in a local train, was a delight to watch. His performance was replete with many such moments where the NSD alumni proved why he regarded as one of the best actors in the business.
Technically, be it the use of light, music or the swiftness of the backstage production in setting up scenes during blackouts, the production was just seamless all through. Right from the first scene, where Daya is sleeping on his bed when the sun slowly rises from his room’s window, the light play was spot on. It was definitely one of the highlights of the production and it did what light play should do in a play — alleviate scenes and aid performances. Music too was rivetting and the way it lit up scenes of train stations and bus rides with apt background scores, was laudable.

Verdict: Dayashankar Ki Diary is a dark satire on the life of a common man in a metropolis. Using Daya’s character as a tool,

theatre

veteran Nadira beautifully highlights the struggles of a small-towner in a big city, and raises a lot of pertinent issues. Through the course of the play, the audience get an up close and personal view of human emotions such as fear, disgust, jealousy, lust, anger and so
on. If you are an avid reader of classic books on theatre — such as Konstantine Stanislavski’s An Actor Prepares — Dayashankar Ki Diary is a must-watch as it offers a visual demonstration of a few important lessons from the book.

Rating: 4.5 stars