The IIS University presents Annual Play “Phool & Fools”

29th September 2018: Jaipur: Committing suicide these days, has become as fashionable for the youngsters as to fall in love. There are situations in which the youngsters take a stern step and for them it is a ‘trend’ to do so. Such situations that force the youngsters to take stern decisions collapsing themselves into other problems are shown by the students of IIS (Deemed to be University) Theatrical Society in their satirical Annual Play “Phool and Fools” staged on Saturday at India International School Auditorium.

The play began with introducing two narrators, who in a very interesting way narrates the fantasy story. The narrator while telling the story to the audience, introduces the lead character of the story Rajkumar Astabhan and his best friend Mufatlal. As the play moves on, it shares a serious conversation between the prince and his friend. After failing in BA examinations three times, the upset prince decides to commit suicide and asks his friend Mufatlal to do all the preparations for his suicidal event. The prince asks Mufatlal to search for all the ideas of committing suicide and finally he agrees upon jumping off a cliff.

At the cliff, the prince meets Rani Nagfani, who was also there to commit suicide as she is heartbroken and failed in love relationships six times. As the conversation between them begins, they fall for each other and decide to get married. The comical situations take place after their decision, formed rest of the story of the play. The play is based on “Nagfani Ki Kahani” penned by noted writer Harishankar Parsai highlighted the awful situation of the society in a hearted way. Described through situational comedy, the play was relished by the audience.

Vivek Kumar has directed the play while Hardik Shah has designed it. According to the director, the play is based on Red Nose Clowning Form and the philosophy behind this form is finding something in nothing and conveying sense out of non-sense. This play was an outcome of 38 days of theatre workshop in which 43 artists were taught the spontaneity and the element of surprise in life as 43 different souls were transformed into energy on the stage.

Mr. Vivek is an alumnus of National School of Drama and has been trained in Red Nose Clowning under Ashwath Bhatt. He has performed in more than 500 shows of wizcraft’s production “JHUMROO” at Kingdom of Dreams. Hardik Shah is a founder of Five Senses Theatre Group. Presently, he is directing a Web Series for Amazon Prime. Theatre Co-ordinator Dr. Aditi R. Khandelwal has contributed in giving the play a final shape.

The defining quality of this entertaining show was its cast. The comic timing of Urvashi Bidawat as Astabhan and Divya Bhomia as Mufatlal is simply amazing. Priyal Mathur as Nagfani was very convincing in both the situations once when she was heartbroken and later when she fell in deep love with Astabhan. Mansi Agarwal and Surabhi Agawal tickled the funny bones of audience who played the role of Poet and Singer respectively while trying to pacify grieving Astabhan.

Bandit Queen fame National Award Winner Theatre, Film and Television Actor Ms. Seema Biswas was the chief guest on the occasion. Ms. Biswas applauded the artists’ performance in the play and persuaded them to pursue acting as she had seen a great potential in them.

Dr. Ashok Gupta, Vice-Chancellor of the university has congratulated everyone associated with this play for putting their heart and soul into it to make it successful. He also distributed participation certificates to the students.