While we’re all familiar with the “angry young man” of India, Hyderabadis this past weekend were treated to 12 of them! Performing an adaptation of the English play 12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose, theatre group Samahaara took to the stage on Friday and Saturday evening at Lamakaan to tell the story of 12 men in a jury room who are debating the guilt (without reasonable doubt, as was repeatedly mentioned) of a 19-year-old boy accused of killing his father.
At first, only one juror believes that the boy is not guilty, and over the span of the play, he manages to convince the other jurors of the same, through reason and deduction. Featuring six debutants from the group’s three week theatre workshop, all the actors did justice to their characters. The stand-out performance, however, was by Juror No. 4, debutant Nilachal Majhi, who works for Deloitte. “Since this was our debut, there was a little nervousness, especially when all eyes were on us,” he says, “But with a lot of practice we managed to perform well.”
Rathna Shekar Reddy, Samahaara’s founder and director of the play, says he wanted to bring in new actors for this workshop-based production. “This is the 16th production oriented workshop we have done. We realised we needed a solid play for this group.”
Keeping in mind that half of the actors in the group were debutants, he knew it would be a challenge. “But after a week, I realised they really got into the roles,” says Rathna Shekar The workshops with Samahaara also helped people become more confident about performing on stage. “I joined the weekend workshops at first, but since I wanted to join an actual production and wanted to go one level up, I started going for their weekday workshops,” says Majhi, “All the things about voice modulation and hand movements that were taught were a new experience. I realised I was in good hands after Friday’s performance, and the experience has been amazing,” he says.
