9/11/08

We watched the school's production of the Ramayana yesterday during class. The dancing and costumes were absolutely amazing. You could really tell that these students put a lot of work into their performance. It seemed that the rest of the class really enjoyed the play as well. I was confused, however, by the storyline. It's probably because I haven't read the entire book, but I think it would have been easier to understand if I had know what was going on. What baffles me is how the audience understand the production without having read the story. I'm not sure if the audience had a narration going or a booklet with a summary of the scenes written out for them, but some of the costumes made it a little difficult to tell what kinds of animals they were and who each character was in the story. The use of multiple languages I think also played well to the fact that The Ramayana is such a classic/culture-wide phenomenon. I thought the actors that played Rama, Sita, and Ravana were absolutely exceptional, and I only wish that I had been there if person to watch it. I definitely give props to Francis for all his hard work directing and writing the screenplay. I'm sure it was almost impossible to pick which scenes to cut or shorten from such a long epic.