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[Pic: johnnymercer.com]

Prasanna, my friend, who directed the short film Ini Bhayam Illai(which was reviewed here before), has now joined the Evam theatre group and had invited us for a special screening of the film Barefoot in the Park. The film was originally a Broadway play by Neil Simon. Evam, who have stormed into the theatre scene for a year or so in Chennai, are staging this same play in February. As a curtain raiser and a marketing move, we bloggers including Kiruba, Chandrachoodan, Chenthil and Narsi were invited for the screening of the flick Barefoot in the Park, in The Park Hotel.

Keeping other details to the fag end, here is all about what the play/movie about. Neil Simon, known for his sensibly humorous plays, scripts Barefoot in the park as a gag that happens in a small brownstone apartment of New York. What starts with the romantic musings of a newly wed couple runs into hilarious family affair and ends up barefoot in the park. This Broadway play was adapted as a movie with the same name in 1967. Robert Redford, who played the role of Mr.Paul Bratter in the movie, also starred for the same role in the play.

Jane Fonda as Mrs.Corie Bratter simply rocks. And it’s on her the movie rests upon. It is her innocence and her free spirited character that gets their family life in ruins. Those tight French kisses and romantic intonations would have made her a demi-goddess back in 1967. So romantic and hilarious when she says, “For a lawyer you are some good kisser”. Similarly, in the beginning, after five continuous days in the honeymoon suite of a hotel, the newly wed husband starts to his work. Wife Corie, walks with just a slick small shirt to the elevator where her husband boards the crowded elevator, says “Thank you, Mr. Dooley. Next time you’re in New York, just call me up”. That clueless expression on Robert Redford’s face was amazing. Yo!! We just burst out with laughter and from then on the same tempo gets maintained till the end.

As the couple’s apartment is situated on the fifth floor of an elevator less apartment, the gag is about the people coming up with lack of breath to the couple’s apartment. The telephone guy who comes up to the newly rented house, gets frustrated by the walking up five floors and says, “My name’s Harry Pepper if you ever have any trouble with line, do me a favor, don’t ask for Harry Pepper.” Corie’s mom who comes to visit her daughter newly rented apartment, literally has a stroke and replies annoyingly, “If only there was a knife shop in the apartment basement, I would have killed myself instead of climbing all these stairs”. Charles Boyer as Victor Velasco adds more flavor to the humor. The climax is of course dramticised and comical, similar to that of Michael Madhana Kamarajan. Barefoot in the park is a feel good movie and even watched nearly 38 years of it’s release it seems convincingly relevant.

I did think, before the movie, that if only I watched the movie, I may not be pushed to watch the play. I got it all wrong. Those complex sequences of stairs and the witty remarks make me curious to see how EVAM would unleash the play on stage. I am also extra curious to see the act of the heroine, Corie Bratter, for its around her the play is twined. Looks like the part would be played by a member of Girish Karnad’s theatre group.

Though I haven’t seen any of Evam’s plays till date, I have known them by their publicity which hit my office notice boards during their performance of Woody Allen‘s Death. Combined with their prime sponsors, Royal Sundaram group, they have put together a wonderful marketing effort to get back the awareness of theatre among the Chennaites. Karthik Kumar [remember the Alai Payuthey’s American mappillai] and Sunil started Evam after their course at Mudra Institute of Communications. They are probably trying to take back the theatre from the Jollna-n-Jibba clad, self-proclaimed cerebral groups and give it to the yuppie MNC guys who do nothing big than watching numerous nameless Hollywood flicks in multiplexes. That by itself is a noble virtue and I am personally interested to watch their play even if they haven’t screened the movie for us. If only they keep level-headed with this motive for a couple of years, Chennai would get the grasp of theatre and we will see more theatre groups emerging which would pump up the theatre business.

Here’s the commercial info – Barefoot in the Park is staged at Sivagami Pethachi auditorium near the TTK road on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd weekends of this month. To pick up tickets call 98842 77338.

Indian Newspaper celebrates its 225th birthday today. This same day on 1780, the Indian newspaper was born and a new jobs called paperboys emerged. Hopefully it will continue to swing for the next 20 years like this. 20 years is just too much of a guesstimate given the supersonic developments in the tech area. However, newspapers would live longer than that but may not be in the same paper form. Who knows ?

Atleast in this part of the world, newspapers have been the prime source of news for more than a century. Else Bharati wouldn’t have never attempted to edit a newspaper called Vijaya when he was undercover in Pondicherry. The televisions which glare the red colored flash news snippets are just about picking up and can never replace newspapers. The internet however can.

Imagine, after 10 years from now, all of us might carry a tabloid PC or smaller than that, where we would subscribe to online editions of The Hindu, Times of India, Deccan Herald and those paperboys might just loose their jobs. Though personally I wish that never happens because there are numerous people whom I know, jump-start their morning biological compulsions only after a cup of filtercoffee and a gulp of morning news from The Hindu. Am sure Hindu’s online edition would improve dramtically then, to adapt the bulging online junta.

Vikatan group which publishes the widely read popular weeklies, is making it’s their online editions as a paysite. I am sure their online readership would continue to drop in the coming months but I am positive it might pickup in a year or two. All these days Vikatan.com was a free site and it was serving Vikatan only as a way of marketing their magazines. Now they are continuing to do what they have been doing online but for a sum of money. Even a few thousand dollars for them through the online subscription is extra. They can atleast break-even with this to pay their online content managers.

Back in the US, as the newspaper van throws a plastic covered newspaper at the doorstep which most of them pickup only when they take their cars out to work. They get dose of news from the numerous news channels and online news sources delivered to their multi-tasked PDAs. Ofcourse, I’ve read newspapers like Chicago Tribune, NY Times, Sun, Wash Post that have provide amazingly opinonated views to the news. It’s only that the urgency of life that make newspaper being read online than offline. A similar case would also happen even in India. I ain’t under estimating the power of newspaper but it’s due to complex lifestlyes, newspapers might get shrinked as marketing media for the readers. There could even be a Hindu evening edition in the coming years just for the whole lot of population that only gets up in the evening after a tiring night shift at callcenters.

All the above were on the future of newspapers. Taking about the contemporary state, few newspapers have started to take political sides or caste-based sides. A commoner has to read atleast two newspapers, watch the biased channel news, read online just to decide what the actual story was. Here’s the positive note for all those who think I was a little negative through out the post. If only newspapers continue to report(this is dicey word) news as they are, they can give a run to the online news content and news channels.

For those who missed to read today’s newspapers(in the wood pulp form), here are some the fabulous ad caption that The Indian Newspaper Society published as multiple quater page ads in most of the newspapers.

– If this was just a paper, it wouldn’t have lasted 225 years. The Indian newspaper. Born 29th January 1780. Just as powerful today.

– Go back to reading the paper. On this day in 1780, the first Indian newspaper hit the stands. And so began a ritual millions indulge in everyday. Come to think of it, that’s what you were doing before we interupted.

– Just this once, the big news of the day isn’t in the papers. It is the papers. 29th January, 1780. The first Indian newspaper hits the stands. And ever since, the papers have become an essential part of daily life. Now there’s a truly newsworthy event.