HOME MOVIES

______________

Second to None 
 Characters in the play

Dhanu Ambuja Seetaram. Well read, well informed,

articulate, sensitive. A writer and mother of two.

Large in build, strong in voice. 


Dulari Daughter, in her late teens, in Junior College, affectionately called Dilu. In transition between puppy fat and campus slim.   


Deven Devendra Seetaram, husband, wage earner. A secure job, a vaguely senior position.  Defies further description. 


Dash Adarsh, younger brother of Dulari. Self sufficient,

seen little, heard even less. At the age of rapid vertical growth at the expense of girth. 


Hari Close friend of the family. Warm, unobtrusive. 
                      Vijay Padaki

Bangalore Little Theatre | August 2002 

NOTES  

The play, on completion, appeared to be the third in a trilogy that fell into place largely by itself. The other two plays would be Family Albums, written in the late ‘eighties, and Arrowheads, written in the early ‘nineties. The basic idea of Home Movies was brewing at the back of the head for a long time, the characters revealing themselves as snapshots or comic strips every now and then. A period of forced rest in the middle of this year helped draw the bits and pieces into a mosaic of scenes that could be called a playscript. 


What Home Movies has in common with the other plays is the focus on the family, rather than on individual personalities. There is an emphasis on the characteristic process in the family, rather than on a plot or story line. This follows the writer’s observation in his professional work that the character of a person cannot be separated from the character of the larger human interactive unit of which one is a part. It seems relatively easy to write a play around a strong, recognizable personality type. It appears to be a greater challenge, to this writer at least, to attempt a characterization of that larger unit which must include the dynamics of interactions across individuals. These individuals have, of course, personalities of their own. But these are influencing the character of the larger unit all the time. At the same time each of them is being shaped by it too. A cross-sectional view of the family seemed to offer interesting dramatic possibilities.  


As with the first two plays, Home Movies has been developed with a case study platform. The specifics of characterization and the dramatic content, however, are entirely fictional. The performing group is expected to engage in the usual rigorous research and improvisation to flesh in the characters by themselves around the necessarily minimal descriptions provided in the script. It is too easy to put “clinical” labels on the characters in the play. (In Family Albums there was indeed a violent and tragic reaction to labeling.) These may be useful and even valid, but internal consistency and credibility must be regarded as more important than academic neatness. 


There are three main acting areas in the play : a spacious sitting room in the Seetaram home, a smaller room occupied by Dash, and a space with a round table and chairs that serves both as the Seetarams’ dining room and a café. Differences in level for the three areas, stage and budget permitting, would be nice.   


With seamless scene changes and a brisk pace maintained, the play should have a running time of under two hours. A single intermission should do, at the place indicated. 
 


                                                             VP