International Play Festival: India

Over the weekend, I attend the Sunday showing of the International Play Festival: India where the play Hayavadana was performed by ONU students. This play was beautifully executed with minimal props, which made the imaginations of the viewers go wild. The live, authentic music was a plus, too.

Live music performed before, during, and after the performance.

I used this event for my live tweeting assignment. I quickly found out this was not the best event to live tweet because no phones or photography were permitted. However, i was able to tweet before, at intermission, and after the play.

Hayavadana is a out two men who fall in love with the same woman and that same woman falling in love with both of them. The two men, Devadatta and Kapila, are best friends and feel betrayed when they find out they're both in love with the same woman, Padmini. Padmini ends up marrying and having a child with Kapila. About half way through the play, Devadatta gives his head as a sacrifice to Kali, who is the mother of life and death, so Kapila can have his wife. Kapila stumbles across his best friend with a severed head and decides to sacrifice is own head for his friend. Padmini finds both of her lovers with severed heads and cries to Kali to bring them back. Kali tells her that she must put the heads back on their bodies and press the knife to their necks and that she will then bring them back to life. Padmini does this and when her lovers come back to life, she realizes she puts the head on the wrong body.

Devadatta and Kapila fight over who is truly married to Padmini because their bodies were switched. It turns out that the body of Kapila with the head of Devadatta is who Padmini stays with. However, Kapila and Devadatta stay friends and sword fight. While fighting, they stab each other at the same time and die together. Padmini can't stand to see her lovers dead, so she tells the narrator to give her son to the hunters and tell them its Kapila's son and when her son is old enough, to give him to the city and tell them its Devadatta's son. Padmini then stabs herself with the sword to be with her lovers.

My take on this play is that it is like an Indian version of Romeo and Juliet except there are three lovers and not two.