Almost Twelfth Night by Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust at Chandralekha's Spaces Besant Nagar, Chennai

Almost Twelfth Night by the theatre group Katkatha, part of the Hamara Shakespeare Festival, is a unique combination of man and machine. In this case, puppets. To be honest, I was very wary of watching a play , rather a puppet show, that too based on Shakespeare. Incidentally, the twelfth night was the first play by Shakespeare I had read.

The play was staged in Hinglish and I suspect that was to cater to a larger audience. Finally the mighty North recognises that there are other languages in the country besides Hindi.

The central idea behind the play was that the principal characters were puppets and the fringe characters were human. It is very rare to see an actor-par-excellence in such a subservient role contributing to the success of a play dominated by puppets. Let me explain.

Let us take the case of Viola. For those who haven't read Twelfth Night, she was the twin who impersonated her look-alike brother. Viola was played by a puppet as was her brother Sebastian and other prime characters Duke Orsino, Lady Olivia and butler Malvolio. Director Anurupa Roy and her troupe -- Manish Haldar, Choiti Ghosh and Sunil Gupta -- played all the servants in the houses of the Royals, namely Mariam, Anna and two unnamed servants in the Duke's house.

The coordination between the puppets and humans was excellent and you forgot that it was the humans powering the puppets -- with their voices and hands. All the puppets had a personality of their own. Malvolio, voiced by Haldar was larger than all other characters. Also the transformation of Viola into Cicero was amazing. The puppet Viola broke all the shackles represented by womanhood , when she turned into Cicero, the Duke's pageboy, sending out a message about the bondages that exist in the human world. She is reluctant to turn into Viola because Viola cannot do the things Cicero can.

The lighting and the music (especially the Opera piece whenever any of the two characters are shown to be falling in love) were excellent choices. The fact that adults were queuing up post show to touch and feel the rod puppets , shows how under explored yet exciting the world of puppetry is.

I googled some information about the play on the Katkatha website and discovered that it was a 2002 production. Surprisingly, the team gave no hint of that. The humour was fresh and in line with current times. Watching this group perform was like watching Manchester United play at Old Trafford in the Theatre of Dreams. A feast for the eyes with a twist in the end (hence the title "Almost Twelfth Night").