Futile journey from rags to riches

Our Correspondent

Chandigarh, April 15

The Satvik Arts staged a Hindi play, ‘Khwaish’, at the Mini Auditorium, Tagore Theatre, here on Sunday.

The play was an adaptation of Russian author Anton Chekhov’s popular story — The shoemaker and the devil. Shivam was the co-director of the play with Raja Subramaniyam and SS Sidhu.

The production team had contributed in recreating the environment of a Russian township in 1920. Playwright had retained the original profile of all characters as created by Anton Chekhov so as to illustrate the play’s message.

The play depicts the tale of a poor cobbler, Fyodor, who dreams of wealth and riches without investing his efforts and is mocked by all. Instead, he is critical of all rich people and spends his time drinking and cursing them. However, a man appears from nowhere to reveal to be the devil himself who assures to make Fyodor rich, but asks for his soul in return. Fyodor agrees on the condition that he gets to live a life full of riches.

However, the shoemaker later realises that what he wished for was not what he really wanted.

The relatively suiting costumes and properties, soothing music and the demanding body language of actors enlivened the performance.