CHENNAI: Readings are a welcome sight in the city theatre scene. Production companies can take a break from all the heavy lifting they’ve been attempting, and experience some firsthand audience reactions. Though there were not too many audience reactions, the reading of The Country Doctor by German author Franz Kafka, by performance group Masquerade on Tuesday, as part of ‘Kafkaesque’ for World Theatre Day Celebrations, was a bit, well, monotone.As the actors read out the story of a doctor who had lost his horse, and was scouting for ways to reach a patient miles away, the anxiety that Kafka’s fragmented sentences are supposed to convey were completely lost. Shravan Ramakrishnan and Pranav MP, both taking turns to play the country doctor, did a good job of taking the readers through the rest of the doctor’s nightmare, but with their focus on getting their lines right from an uninspiring script, they seemed to forget that they had a live audience, and let their voices drop.Shrutanjay Narayanan, as the sick patient, did not convince the audience that he wanted to be put to death, and this might be the reason for his family, played by Dileep Rangan and Dhwani Sabesh, to look as uninterested as they did.But the reading was perhaps perfect the way it was, and it was the adaptation of Kafka’s other story, The Bucket Rider that was performed before the reading, that upstaged it, with its near-perfect execution. Heavily inspired by Kafka’s forte, existentialism, the story explores the civilisation of mankind and analyses the intricate details that came with evolution, both at a physical and emotional level.Dileep, as the bucket rider looking for some coal to keep him alive through the icy mountain’s chill, did an impeccable job of bringing out the despair of his character. This particular writing by Kafka is especially text-heavy and has little scope for action, maybe except for emoting through voice, which Dileep single-handedly managed to accomplish.Shankar Chockalingam and Dhwani as the coal merchant and his wife, who refuse to see a customer begging for even just pieces of coal, were nothing more than mere props that support Dileep’s showmanship.The group did seem a little complacent about the entire affair. And there is no complaining about that. Informal theatre could be the change that the audience needs. It is fine for a reading to happen without flamboyant costumes and theatrics. But for the complacence to seep into the rest of the acts might have been too much. And this was evident in the final adaptation of Kafka’s Arabs and Jackals, where actors definitely could have put some heart into their acting.
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