A theatrical version of 'Five Point Someone' is a big hit at the IIT Chennai fest Saarang says Dinesh T U.
The Madras Players is a 50 year old theatre group which boasts of some of the best performers. When they premiered the stage adaptation of Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone in Chennai, the crowd was so heavy that they were forced to make another performance at IIT - M during the Saarang Fest.
When it comes to stage adaptation of a book, not everyone who reads the book will find the play interesting. Books are a very rich medium where the reader’s develop their imagination and visualize the story in their own way, so when a stage adaptation happens, not many relate to it. But Madras Players were successful in this venture which is clearly seen from the house full shows.
Five Point Someone tells what not to do at IIT. Every soul who finds a place in IIT has worked really hard for two years in school just to find that, college is no different. GPA is what determines what you are in college and under performers are treated as an outcast.
The story goes around three under performers in college Ryan, Hari and Alok who manage only a 5.something GPA. College has labeled them as outcasts. Five Point Someone is all about what is life other than the serious studies at IIT, what is friendship, life and love. Ryan Oberoi (Praveen Bharatwaj), Hari Kumar (Abhijeet 'Monty' Mohanty) and Alok Gupta (V Sarvesh Sridhar) rule the stage for a solid two hours. Alok is this serious guy who is very keen on studies while Ryan is a happy-go-lucky guy, Hari can be easily influenced by both of them in anything and everything. These three guys carry a perfect rapport all through the play.
Ryan, Hari and Alok expect more out of life and in this frantic search they end up with a 5.something GPA which gives a serious blow to their friendship. In one of the viva session in college, Hari screws up with the answers and the professor in a fit of rage asks him ‘Are you a commerce student’. Now calling an IITian a commerce student is considered the worst insult, but the audience of the play for the day being from IIT welcomed this dialogue with a thunderous applause, to acknowledge Hari’s timely reaction for the professor’s disgraceful words. In this chaos, engineering and fashion designing meets thanks to Hari who falls in love with Neha (Uttara Krishnadas). Neha is also an excellent performer and her solo scene on stage where she writes a letter to her dead brother speaks volumes.
The senior Madras Players come like a storm with their more matured voice and modulation. P.C. Ramakrishna as Prof. Cherian the most hated professor by all speaks as though he swallowed a couple of microphone, a bold and striking voice he has got. P.C. Ramakrishna introduced Nikhila Kesavan to the audience as the youngest director of Madras Players. There are re takes while directing a movie but in case of plays ...
This is where Nikhila rocks !
The set props were simple and nicely used. A bed, two stairs and a study table made the props for the entire play. Something I noticed in the play was the timed dialogues uttered by the artists, if the audience are laughing or clapping loud, the artists wait till the laughter and clap fades and then speak their dialogues, so that no one misses a word. Hari was this normal guy when it comes to the love scenes, tensed and messing ! Neha and Hari do leave the audience clapping all the way. A scene where Neha happens to be alone at her place and is waiting for Hari, the bell rings and Neha says ‘The door is open’ as much romantic as she can only to see her dad enter the house The story is narrated by Vidyuth Sreenivasan who is calm and cool and walks around the stage narrating, he even takes a shot of vodka with the performers.
If you are in Chennai and you want to catch up with this play, they have yet another show to comply with public demand on Feb 14 at Sivagami Pethachi Auditorium at 7.15pm. Their website is no useful, so you can reserve tickets by calling 98400 80783.
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