Image credits and copyrights: www.cineplay.com

Cineplay Written & directed by Mahesh Dattani
Venue: IHC
Date: 18 April 2015

Cineplay is a new medium for the Delhi audience. These are televised versions of plays, mostly with celebrity casts.  This is the second Cineplay that we had watched, the first being “Between the Lines”.

Hasmukh Saab ki Wasihat was a light cineplay about a patriarch who died leaving a will whereby his wife and family had to coexist with his mistress. The cast had a lineup of actors from television and theatre – Mohan Agashe, Seema Pahwa, Achint Kaur, Gagan Sethi and Mona Wasu. Unfortunately Mohan Agashe has been assaying “lecherous old man” roles frequently and Achint Kaur is synonymous with being the “other woman”. Hence possibly these actors had little to explore and their performances were mediocre. The first part of the play was stretched and the “they lived happily ever after” ending was cliché.

The camera multiplies various elements of a stage. Therefore the garish colors of the sets, which may have been ok if we had watched this production live, were distracting in the Cineplay.

This genre of cineplay art still has a long way to go. How about not obsessing on glamour and focusing on the content?