When the audience becomes the jury

Chandigarh, November 10

The play, ‘Night of January 16th’, written by Ayn Rand, a Russian-American author and directed by Zubin Mehta, was staged at Vivek High School as part of their 24th Founder’s Week celebrations.

The play was set in a courtroom and was a legal drama with main characters of the play being boldly egocentric and remorseless.

The play centred on the trial of secretary Karen Andre enacted by Anoushka Atri for murder of her employer Bjorn Faulkner, a businessman, who defrauded his company of millions of dollars to invest in gold trade. On the night of January 16, Faulkner and Andre were in the penthouse of Faulkner in New York City when the latter apparently fell to his death. The suspicion of his murder quickly fell upon Andre as the court believed she was jealous because of his marriage to a rich heiress, Nancy Lee Whitfield Faulkner, acted by Prerna Bakshi. The play further transported to the court room scene depicting challenging arguments between District Attorney John Flint played by Vinayak Malhotra, Defense Attorney Taylor J Stevens played by Arjoon Arora and Giovanni Vaccinni played by Kaustav Kochar who lend colour to the play.

The unusual feature of the play was that the audience acted as the jury and decided whether to hold Andre guilty or not. — TNS