Sunday, February 28, 2010

Madras Players' Witness for the Prosecution

Last evening was made wonderful by Madras Players' excellent play - Witness for the Prosecution, adapted from a story by Agatha Christie. 

Courtroom scenes have always captured my interest in movies, but to do such a riveting courtroom scene live on stage must require a lot of talent. And for the Madras Players, talent was in abundance - the protagonist's (played by Vivek) body language and expressions were a perfect fit for the role, and the actor who played the defence lawyer had an amazing screen presence. Other actors too excelled - ones who played the roles of the housekeeper (with very convincing Italian accented English) and that of the protagonist's wife (including a different get up in one scene and German accent).

I must have also benefited from not having read the original story/novel, because of the suspense, one would keep thinking that the protagonist's role was single dimensional till the very end. I had mostly felt that Agatha Christies writing was too detailed and dragging at times. Kudos to the entire team behind the show for converting that into a complete fast paced thriller (and for improvising on some very minor goof-ups).

I'm now a fan of the Madras Players and I have resolved to see their plays whenever possible :-)

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