"I'll be off a second later, and go straight to the theatre!"

Metroplus Theatre Festival 2009, Chennai.

I seem to be writing against theatre a lot, philistine that I am. This time, however, I have nothing against the play. The play was visually brilliant. Aurally fantastic. The sets were gorgeous, the lighting was divine and the actors were par excellence. The problem: the play was in Korean.


The language was not the problem here, for there were subtitles. Sadly, the people seated in the balcony of the hall could not see these subtitles, (the screen blocked it from view completely), consequently having no idea what was happening. It does credit to Chennai that some sixty people can sit through a Greek tragedy interpreted in Korean (Medea) , and not make a single sound. Shows you how many people understand Korean.

There were four of us who could not see the emperor's new clothes.


Later, as the lights came up, we asked the rest of the audience what they understood. Some looked sheepish, others looked down their long intellectual noses at us ( As if you need subtitles for something so beautiful dah-ling) and one aged caucasian person told us that we had witnessed something of great beauty and had just ruined it. He went on to say that all Indian audiences disgusted him. When we took up this statement with him, the organizers brushed us off, asked us to drop it. Lovely behaviour from the staff of a Newspaper that claims to be the most dignified, intelligent and honest journal in our country, don't you think? And yesterday was Independence day.


Did Jai Hind just become Jai Ho?