Helen — a tale of strong willpower

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 7

As a part of the ongoing theatre festival being organised by the Natyam Theatre Group from Jaito, a play, ‘Helen’, was staged on the sixth day here today. The play was staged by a team that has come from Assam to take part in the festival.

The sixth day of the festival was also dedicated to Prof Gurdial Singh. Before staging the play, Dr Ravinder Singh Sidhu from the Punjabi University regional centre paid homage to the great playwright through his words.

Based on the life of Helen Keller who was an American author, political activist, a lecturer and also the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor degree of arts, the play was written and directed by Kismat Bano, who also played the lead role. Though this was the first play directed by 24-year-old Kismat, the applause that it generated was outstanding.

The play followed the life story of a young Helen who couldn’t hear, speak or see but was quite a handful for her parents to handle. Challenged by the physical handicap of their daughter, her parents rope in a teacher who is visually challenged but is an expert at handling children with special needs.

The fact that the play was based on a true story brought life to the play. It also showed the gradual learning curve of Helen and how she grew up to earn a bachelors degree. Despite the fact that the play didn’t have many dialogue exchanges between the characters and was largely dependent on the sign language used by Helen and her teacher, it didn’t let the audience’s interest in the play to fall for even a second and earned the actors repeated rounds of applause.

A particular scene wherein Helen identifies her teacher as her mother left an indelible mark on the minds of the audience and also highlighted the importance of a teacher in one’s life and progress.