On watching 'Hair'

Saturday saw me watching the play 'Hair' directed by Ajay Krishnan at Ranga Shankara. Hair is the third directorial venture by Ajay who had made his debut with the much acclaimed 'Butter and Mashed Banana' in 2005 (which I shall be watching on Wednesday or Thursday at the same venue) and produced by Evam Youth Forum. It was an attempt by the 24 year old (so claims a news article I came across through Google News) director to reinterpret the classical fairy tale of Rapunzel.

Almost all of the Google searches for various references to the play returned only pre-staging reviews but none of the post-staging kinds. I was looking very hard for them hoping that they will help me make better sense of the entire thing.

It started off with a sort of prelude in the form of a dialogue between a man (I love my hair) and a woman (I hate my hair) about hair which leads to the story of Rapunzel and questions as to why Rapunzel, The Witch and The Prince did what they did and said what they said. The scene then moves onto Rapunzel in a tower along with The Witch and explores the complex relationship between them until the arrival of The Prince onto the scene ("She loves me a lot too", says Rapunzel at one point).

White rope (hemp?) is constantly manipulated through out the play, alluding to hair and how it binds us, entangles us and entwines us. The play ended with a projection of clips from (the Turkish staging of the play by tiyatro 0.2 Istanbul?) a different performance of the same play with Rapunzel watching her life go by.

My reaction was mixed, as I could not claim to have completely unraveled the play and I had to leave with a faint feeling that the tiny key to completely understanding it had somehow eluded my grasp. The odd thing about this performance was that the actors did not introduce themselves.

On the whole, in spite of a lot of talent among many of the actors (notice I do not say all), the play refuses to bring out their full potential. The performances by Rapunzel and The Witch were par excellence. The script is ambiguous, even if so deliberately, which though adds to the mysticism, also helps the audience interpret the play in their own way. On a scale of 1 to 5, I would give it a moderate 3.