ANDHA
YUGAM
(the blind age)
Design
and Direction : Sudheer Babu
Text:
Dharmaveer Bharathi
Translation:
A Aravindakshan
Music : Bijibal M
Light Design: Girish Menon
Duration of the play: 55 mts.
This poetic play by Dharmaveer Bharathi is an important play in the
repertory of Indian theatre is attempted by the major Indian directors.
It explores the ethics of war and the eventual transmission of revenge
and extremism into the human psyche.
The contemporary atmosphere of war and antagonism in different manifestations,
and the violence breeding in the psyche of human race prompted this
independent adaptation of Andha Yug in Malayalam. The central character
of the play Aswadhama is the feature of the many, who are victimized
to wander, armed with hostility and disgust. He is living beyond the
epic of Mahabharatha into an everlasting, ever living expression.
Thus this production remembers the contemporary history of war, hatred
and revenge and uses documentary footages to develop the stage language.
The play exposes the victims and also the ‘heroes’ who silently
spread the message and seeds of violence.
The blindness is the result of hatred of the victim and the attacked,
also of the manipulators who refuse to see into the future. This Brahmastra
of Aswadhama is the result of all these.
Gandhari blinds her eyes to escape the pretensions of dharma, ethics
and morality. She says to Vidura, “ I told Duryodhana, Victory
will be with dharma only: But was non-existent. The one, whom you call
as Divine, is a cheat who limited Dharma to his own fancies.”
Aswadhama has transformed into a powerful bomb that can explode at any
moment of time. He asserts to all warmongers of the world and to all
who watches and enjoys war from their drawing rooms, “ You the
gods of skies, you the ones who gaze war from your own seats, me Aswadhama
blind with anger, is transformed into the Brahmastra that can destroy
the whole.
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