JOIN US‘Public Property’, a play critical of media and its love for controversies, making of celebrities, gender issues and hypocrisy of society, marked the third day of the Deccan Herald Theatre Festival on Sunday.
Based on a play written by Sam Peter Jackson and directed by Prakash Belawadi, ‘Public Property’ is the tale of a news anchor. The protagonist Geoffrey Hammond, played by Prakash Iyengar, is caught by the media when in a compromising position with an orphaned teenager Jamie, enacted by Anirudh Acharya, and his efforts to get himself out of the situation with the help of his publicist Larry, played by Belawadi.
Belawadi as Larry handles direction and acting with ease. However, the most enduring performance was put up by Anirudh who plays the quirky, nervous and confused 16-year-old Jamie.
Comical situations thrown in between keep the spectators hooked to their seats, though a number of sub-plots cause confusion.
Prakash as once a popular news anchor, regularly utters dialogues that are skeptical of the media, such as this: “There is no longer anything new in news”.
The characters’ efforts to save themselves from the impending doom lend an element of intrigue in the story – Larry from fading fast into oblivion, Jamie from being branded as a no-good street kid who wanted his 15 minutes of fame, and Geoffrey to re-stamp his position as the “news broadcaster of the year for three consecutive years.”