Emotions explored

As a theatre group, ‘Evam’ has always explored sensitive themes with great ease. The kind of projects they take up encourage the audience to delve into the subject and lends enough room for analysis.  ‘Evam’ recently staged a play titled, ‘The Long way Home’ and every show ran full house.

Directed by Karthik Kumar, ‘The Long Way Home’ is about the many facets of relationships. It’s a tale of a mother who lands up at her younger daughter Shikha’s house, on the pretext of arranging a suitable man for her to marry. 

What she really longs to do, however, is save their estranged relationship. Thirty-year-old Shikha is pre-occupied with her own painful past and stakes her happiness on finding her sister’s baby.

The play offers a view of the lives of three women with a shared past, that both unites them and threatens to destroy them; they are forced to embark on a journey that they have been putting off all their lives.

Karthik points out that he thoroughly enjoyed working with the team of very well-informed women.  “There’s a lot of different emotions that go back and forth and the cast did well to explore a sensitive theme with a lot of courage and conviction,” says Karthik. He says that the play also delves into the issue of child trafficking. “What is the worth of a child?” he questions. Karthik says that it wasn’t difficult to get the actors to integrate with their characters.  “The feelings between a mother and her child and the widening gap between parents and their children were part of the play. The play offers a solution to the widening gap,” he adds. 

Five years ago, says Karthik, ‘Evam’ couldn’t think of exploring such a theme. “Now, we are commercially sound and ready to do more such themes. We have the confidence to stretch our creativity a little more,” he adds. The cast includes Lakshmi Priyaa C, Amrutha Varshini and Anita Ratnam.

The audience loved the play and felt the actors were completely at ease with their roles.  Surakha Rao, a theatre enthusiast, says, “There were a couple of emotional scenes and the actors did well to depict these emotions to perfection. They also provoked the audience to think.” Ramesh Krishnan, a professional musician, says, “This play, although a little serious, did well to convey something that is really happening.”