Blog 103 - Water Lilies at Rangashankara
Theater can cast a mesmerizing effect on you. The subtle shift of emotions just by a twitch of an eyebrow and a casual dialogue between strangers leading to a wonderful story. Last weekend I saw a play called Water Lilies Trilogy at Rangashankara.
Water Lilies Trilogy as the name suggests is a sequence of three short stories, Fawn Lilies, Water Lilies and Black Lilies each part played by a couple who meet by chance and this casual rendezvous leads to a story linking them.
Fawn Lilies, the part that I loved the most is set up in a park in Ohio where a Telugu bird-watching dietician meets a gay vagabond who tells an unusual tale about his life. Coming from a troubled background and unsure about relationships he ends up stealing a guitar and taking a road to nowhere and is broke to the last quarter. By chance he meets an old dude (a green campaign runner) who encourages him to become a Tree Sitter.
The couple presents an intimate picture and the way the vagabond describes his Tree Sitting experiences is amazing! About all kinds of birds and animals up there, the big tree colony and the bizarre experiences up there. The dietician has come over a broken relationship with her long time boyfriend, Salim an avid bird-watcher who due certain circumstances ends up choosing fighting a holy war in Palestine over love.
The story ends with the vagabond describing about how he came across fawn lilies grown amidst harsh conditions and then out of sudden the magical light falling on lilies making them incandescent almost surreal; present calmness amidst rush and harsh circumstances.
Water Lilies, is set up in an art museum. A lady from Srilanka is spellbound and almost brought to tears by water lilies a painting by Monet. A Texan banker and a Sunday painter who is not much impressed by Monet and thinks that life is not all sweet as painted by Monet; Lovely landscapes and gardens full of flowers. He is astonished that someone is doing second round around Monet’s paintings and a casual conversation between them leads to story that changes his impressions forever.
The story ends with an emotional recital of a poem, To Paint a Water Lily.
Black Lilies, the last story of the sequence is set up in an airport just two days after 9/11. In this story a Serbo-Hungarian writer, a noble prizewinner acclaimed for one of the darkest novels converses with a schoolteacher from Tamilnadu who is afraid of thunderstorms and about catching her connecting flight back to India but is brave enough to face death and succeeds in showing the writer a different perspective toward life and the darkness that surrounds him.
The play has a backdrop of soothing music played on piano.
Overall it was a different experience. The ambiance at Rangashankara is great and the rainy Bangalore evening added to the mood.
Water Lilies Trilogy as the name suggests is a sequence of three short stories, Fawn Lilies, Water Lilies and Black Lilies each part played by a couple who meet by chance and this casual rendezvous leads to a story linking them.
Fawn Lilies, the part that I loved the most is set up in a park in Ohio where a Telugu bird-watching dietician meets a gay vagabond who tells an unusual tale about his life. Coming from a troubled background and unsure about relationships he ends up stealing a guitar and taking a road to nowhere and is broke to the last quarter. By chance he meets an old dude (a green campaign runner) who encourages him to become a Tree Sitter.
The couple presents an intimate picture and the way the vagabond describes his Tree Sitting experiences is amazing! About all kinds of birds and animals up there, the big tree colony and the bizarre experiences up there. The dietician has come over a broken relationship with her long time boyfriend, Salim an avid bird-watcher who due certain circumstances ends up choosing fighting a holy war in Palestine over love.
The story ends with the vagabond describing about how he came across fawn lilies grown amidst harsh conditions and then out of sudden the magical light falling on lilies making them incandescent almost surreal; present calmness amidst rush and harsh circumstances.
Water Lilies, is set up in an art museum. A lady from Srilanka is spellbound and almost brought to tears by water lilies a painting by Monet. A Texan banker and a Sunday painter who is not much impressed by Monet and thinks that life is not all sweet as painted by Monet; Lovely landscapes and gardens full of flowers. He is astonished that someone is doing second round around Monet’s paintings and a casual conversation between them leads to story that changes his impressions forever.
The story ends with an emotional recital of a poem, To Paint a Water Lily.
Black Lilies, the last story of the sequence is set up in an airport just two days after 9/11. In this story a Serbo-Hungarian writer, a noble prizewinner acclaimed for one of the darkest novels converses with a schoolteacher from Tamilnadu who is afraid of thunderstorms and about catching her connecting flight back to India but is brave enough to face death and succeeds in showing the writer a different perspective toward life and the darkness that surrounds him.
The play has a backdrop of soothing music played on piano.
Overall it was a different experience. The ambiance at Rangashankara is great and the rainy Bangalore evening added to the mood.
