Review: Mythical Surrender
If George Orwell and Arundhati Roy ever wrote a story on the AFSPA, a story about evil military power and its oppression of village people, it would probably read like the script of Mythical Surrender. The play employs symbolism (as Orwell did) and talks about an underlying social evil (as Roy would). The comparison may not be apt, but the idea is there for Mythical Surrender is a play, veiled behind a story entailing evil serpentine creatures and common fisherfolk.
The symbolism itself is a work of intelligence. Having chosen serpentine people to represent deception, evil and all things bad, the writer has struck the nail on its head. The story follows the lives of a couple who live in a hut across the lake. One day, the serpentine people (who closely resemble the military, arrive at the couple’s hut, kill the husband and rape the wife. A child is born out of the union. However, the mother sees the child as having been spawned out of a monstrous force, and decides, that even though she will bear the child, must kill it one day. She is visited by her father-in-law who persuades her to travel with him back to Imphal, alas, she decides to bear the pain and stay where she is. She gives birth to her child who in his appearance is serpentine and goes and joins his people. Sometime in the future, he has grown up and comes back to terrorize his mother and her relatives.
The dialogues have been constructed as long monologues where the characters speak to the audience and to the forces of nature rather than to one another. Had I understood the vernacular, I would’ve said they were poetic, they sounded like sung poetry, but that is what I could surmise from the subtitles and the sound of what the actors uttered. Alas, I do not understand the vernacular and had to make do with deducing much from facial expression, still, not much was lost in translation. A person from any part of the world would’ve been able to recognise the sadness and the despair in the protagonist’s voice. A lot is also added via the serpentine dance the army people do, the choreography is haunting.
The stage sets and lighting were extremely impressive. Seldom are there sets that are laid out to achieve ease of movement on stage while maintaining their aesthetic sense. The sets of Mythical Surrender had both. A beautiful straw hut in the corner, a painted lake and hills in the background and an ominous looking noose in the middle. What made the play almost real were the boats the characters used which were rowed in and out with the use of inconspicuous wheels. All in all, it was a powerful performance that certainly captured the audience.
