'Love Letter' play completes 1000 stage performances

'Prema Lekhanam' (Love Letter) a play based on the humorous novel by renowned Malayalam writer late Vaikom Muhammed Basheer, has completed 1000 stage performances.
Among those in the audience who had gathered to watch the play at the Tagore theatre here last night was 93-year-old veteran marxist leader, V S Achutanandan.
Directed by Sooraya Krishnamoorthy, the play has only two actors, Amal Rajdev and Divya lekshmi, who portray the characters of Keshavan Nair, a bank employee belonging to the hindu community, and saraamma, a Christian woman.
While Nair is a simpleton, Saramma is happy-go-lucky woman with a sharp tongue and it is their witty dialogues that light up the play.

Soorya Krishnamoorthy said the play has been presented as arena drama and is staged amidst the audience watching from all the four sides.
"I wanted to present a totally different approach to the play," he told PTI.

The director said, however, he never knew that the play would become so popular and reach 1000 stage performances.
Unlike the conventional stage plays, the arena drama is a difficult performance as every side the audience should feel the actors are speaking to them.
The same pair, who are married to each other and have two children, have been performing all these years and there is no change in the music, which is pre-recorded, he said.

The lead pair Amal Rajdev, a theatre artiste and Divya Lekshmi, a Bharatanatyam-cum-Otthanthullal artiste staged their first performance of 'Premalekhanam' in March 2008 and there has no looking back ever since.
They say that it has been a wonderful journey all these years as their performances took them to various Indian cities and in the gulf countries where there is a sizeable Malayalee community.
The play has been staged at the Central prison here also and it was a unique experience, according to the actors.
'Premalekhanam' written in 1943 by basheer while serving imprisonment in the central prison as a political prisoner, is said to be his first work to be published as a book.

He had been put behind bars for writing articles against Dewan C P Ramaswami Iyer.