Might-I Theatre’s Ek Ruka Hua Faisla proved to be the court room thriller it promised to be every inch of the way.
Presented at two shows on Saturday and Sunday last week at the Manukau Festival of Arts 2010, the tautly written play was well appreciated by a packed audience on both days.
Originally written by Reginald Rose 12 Angry Men and later also made into a movie, the story idea is simple.
A twelve member jury is deliberating behind closed doors on charges of murder against a young boy accused of killing his father.
In a departure from the original play’s all male cast, this Hindi version – written and directed by Prashant Belwalkar – has four women in the cast.
The case against the boy looks water tight, as there is a witness in the form of an old man who claims to have heard the incident and another woman who claims to have seen the actual act of stabbing.
Then there is the murder weapon – a knife that was found at the crime scene, implicating the boy.
As the play unfolds, all the jury members bar one are convinced that the boy is guilty of the crime and the task before them is to reach a unanimous decision to take the case to the next stage to facilitate sentencing.
The single jury member – a cool headed female played adroitly by Hetal Jani – who is not completely convinced about the case begins by explaining why she isn’t convinced.
What starts off as a minor doubt in one jury member’s mind slowly develops into an animated and sometimes loud discussion about the various possibilities and scenarios where there could be even a shred of divergence from the commonly perceived notions and judgments of the jury members? There is an adjudicator (Prashant Belwalkar) who is supposed to chair the jury make make sure a final decision is reached. But he is also a part of the vote and has to make up his own mind along with making sure the proceedings are done without disruptions.
As the play proceeds, more and more of the jurors begin to doubt their initial beliefs about having branded the boy guilty. After many a twist and turn including vascillating jurors who flip flop between successive votes, in the end the jury is unanimously convinced of the completely opposite view from the one which they began.
Belwalkar’s adaptation of the play to Hindi and particluarly to the Indian and Mumbai ethos completely with its famed monsoon and Indians’ craze for cricket is done with aplomb.
Every member of the cast does justice to their roles. Devdutt Paranjape, Kuntal Trivedi, Bipin Chavan, Sushma Thakur, Rahul and Binita Redey, Hetal Jani, Madhavi Ram, Ram Padallapurty, Preeta Vyas, Kedar Divekar and Vinesh Kugaonkar played the jurors with Belwalkar himself played the administrator and Vikrant Saraf the clerk.
Indian Weekender was the proud media sponsor of the play.