Ms Meena is a famous yesteryear actress who returns to her native village of Pichampuram to make her final film, a story of her life. Played by Karuna Amarnath, Meena’s character is a delight to watch on stage, switching between a naive school girl and a sugar-coated heady actress seeking revenge from a man who betrayed her trust years ago.As the story unfolds, the village is in debt and Meena has generously agreed to turn things around for one thing in return – the death of Ravi, who left her.How she accomplishes this in the end forms the core of this production when she uses her film as a pretext that runs parallel to the play by Perch. Ravi (Anish Victor) believes that he has the support of the village folk, which he has ostensibly achieved by giving them credit at his provision store.Michael Chengappa (Iswar Srikumar) plays Madan, the actor who plays Ravi in the film. He portrays the dynamics of the relationship that Ravi and Meena once shared.Towards the end (of the movie and the play) when he reveals he is about to marry another, although Meena is with child, the village folk turn against Madan/Ravi’s plight; as though acting it out somehow helped them relive Meena’s tragedy. They concur finally and believe that death is not a harsh judgement for Ravi. This concludes Meena’s revenge and the villagers debt is paid off in blood.The temple scene (in the film) where Meena returns to her village after three months of waiting for Madan to come and join her as promised is a wonderfully choreographed part of the play. Using basic ruralinspired props such as a moram (dust pan) and a broom, the actors set up what appears to be a full fledged temple in a matter of minutes.Multilingual song and dance routines are evident in the entertaining round of ‘auditions’ held to see which villagers land the roles of extras in the film.From a spoofed Piya Thu Ab Tho Aja to an overly dramatic climax for a dying hero, it was clear that in order to play a bad actor, you have to be a really good one.Special mention for MLA Thambidorai (Sachin Gurjale) who is desperate to land more his ‘bit’ role in the film, of wiping the director’s brow. After much damage to his self esteem, he manages to get a single line – ‘Kerchief, sir?’ that he parrots at inopportune moments during the scene, providing much amusement.Peppered with fun song sequences along the lines of ‘You are my hammer, I am your spammer and together let’s go tuk tuk tuk’, live percussion beats and authentic rural accents, Ms Meena was a neat package.Sadly, there were few curious hands to unravel it at their first show on Friday at the Museum Theatre.
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