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Artistes perform a play called ‘Seek the Lost’ – adapted from the book of Jonah in the Bible –in the Covenant Hall of Christian Higher Secondary School in Dimapur on Thursday. The play was directed by V Uto Chishi, and was a joint initiative of the National School of Drama, Unity College of Teacher Education, and the Nagaland Theatre Fraternity.[/caption]
Staff Reporter
Dimapur, March 30 (EMN): “Everyone has a Nineveh/ the place where we fear to know/ everyone has a Nineveh/ let God give you the strength to go”. These words from a song performed by the character who played Jonah’s mother – in a play adapted from the book of Jonah in the Bible – broadly represented the drama’s message.
The play, directed by V Uto Chishi, was titled ‘Seek the Lost’, and was performed at Covenant Hall, Christian Higher Secondary School Dimapur on Thursday afternoon. It was a joint initiative of the National School of Drama, New Delhi, Unity College of Teacher Education and Nagaland Theatre Fraternity.
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Actors play on a theoretical drama at the National School of Drama, New Delhi in collaboration with Unity Collage of Teacher Education and Nagaland Theatre Fraternity at a theatre ‘Seek the Lost’ at Christian Higher Secondary school in Dimapur, Nagaland on Thursday, March 30, 2017. Photo by Caisii Mao[/caption]
Almost everyone knows the story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet. Quite curiously, the play staged on Thursday opened to a scene of Jonah’s childhood played by animation characters in a large projector. The brief animation section tells of how Jonah’s father was killed by the Ninevites, setting the tone for Jonah’s refusal to go to Nineveh.
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Actors play on a theoretical drama at the National School of Drama, New Delhi in collaboration with Unity Collage of Teacher Education and Nagaland Theatre Fraternity at a theatre ‘Seek the Lost’ at Christian Higher Secondary school in Dimapur, Nagaland on Thursday, March 30, 2017. Photo by Caisii Mao[/caption]
The theatre performance was split in five scenes and came sprinkled with touches of humour. In scene I, one of the characters, while promising to keep her mouth shut, uses the line: “My lips shall be like the Red Sea”.
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Actors play on a theoretical drama at the National School of Drama, New Delhi in collaboration with Unity Collage of Teacher Education and Nagaland Theatre Fraternity at a theatre ‘Seek the Lost’ at Christian Higher Secondary school in Dimapur, Nagaland on Thursday, March 30, 2017. Photo by Caisii Mao[/caption]
Scene II perhaps delivers the most memorable line of the play. It occurs when Jonah, while on the run, meets a traveller in the forest. “Whenever you run from something, you run into something,” tells the stranger to Jonah. Scene II also had the most hilarious (and unbiblical?) scene: Jonah playing hide and seek with little girls in the forest, while still on the run.
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Actors play on a theoretical drama at the National School of Drama, New Delhi in collaboration with Unity Collage of Teacher Education and Nagaland Theatre Fraternity at a theatre ‘Seek the Lost’ at Christian Higher Secondary school in Dimapur, Nagaland on Thursday, March 30, 2017. Photo by Caisii Mao[/caption]
The final three scenes – III, IV and V – covered the thematic aspect of the play. These three sections run from Jonah inside the whale’s belly to mass repentance in the city of Nineveh, and to Jonah’s distraught and despair at the turn of events. And then, the Lord’s stinging rebuke to Jonah.
The duration of the play, rather long, ran to almost one and half hour.
