Venue was Narada Gana Sabha, sharp at 7PM the curtain raises. We see a bank counter, a robbery in action that goes fatally wrong with a pregnant women getting shot. Next scene we see the robber Annamalai (played by Anand Ram) behind bars on death row for killing the teller. Vignesh, a freelance writer visits the jailor தோழர் Sivakadaksham (played by Shivaji Chaturvedi) and Asst.Jailor Karunakaran, with permission on hand to interview Raghuraman, a death row convict. Raghuraman is not interested in talking, he walks away from Vignesh after  saying calmly “Yes I did it, I murdered my wife Gayathri“.  Meanwhile Annamalai  claims to Vignesh he is innocent, the shooting was nothing more than an accident. All this scenes are from the first show of Shraddha, the theatre peeople’s new play titled “Case No.575/1”, Story & Dialogues: SL Naanu.

CaseNo575

With what is turning out to be an interesting material for his book, Vignesh sets into action. He interviews, cajoles, even tricks people associated with the cases to open up. Gayathri’s father Satyamurthy, Raghuraman’s neighbour David, Gayathri’s friend Nandhini (played by Lavanya Venugopal) all provide their own versions of the incident. The flashback scenes are brought to life on stage by interesting choreography by Director Sundararajan TD. Did the truth come to light, to find out catch the play which is running in the same venue for next 3 days (19, 20 & 21st June).

The two hour play moves fast, keeps you glued on thanks to fine acting by all the actors on stage and simple dialogues. The play shows the uncommon kind of jailors who are soft spoken & humane, and how blind love of parents on their young one’s clouds them from seeing good side of love marriages. You get to hear timely humour on the ongoing controversy around Maggi noodles. I was impressed by the performance of those who played Gayathri, Satyamoorthy and David roles, kudos to them and to the Director for perfect casting selection. Karthik Bhatt as Vignesh has played out an important role in the play, a brilliant performance from him, congratulations.

 

 

 

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