BY KAVITA CHHIBBER

Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap is the longest running play in the world spanning five decades in London. It was staged at the Berkmar High School auditorium in Atlanta on October 1st and 2nd by Saakaar, a non profit Theater group, which is gaining great recognition for its immensely professional productions. The core group of Saakaar Anuraag Misraraj, Dr Swaroop Nyshadham and Amitabh Sharma, were all involved in dramatics back home. Anuraag and Swaroop met in a temple and talking about their mutual passion for theater, exchanged phone numbers. Amitabh and Swaroop met on a flight to India and on finding out about their mutual passion for the dramatic arts again exchanged number! The other actors joined due to meeting people interested in theater at parties and then later holding open auditions and Saakaar was born.

The first production was the often produced, well liked Neil Simon comedy The Odd Couple staged in fall of 2002, followed by the very colorful folk based musical presentation Ballabhpur ki Katha in May 2003with songs and dances composed by Sandeep and Kumud Savla., both under the aegis of the IACA.

Since 2003 Saakaar has become a non profit entity and come up with two stellar productions “Rumors” by Neil Simon and Ek tha Gadha the well known Hindi satire by Sharad Joshi. The focus says Anuraag Misraraj is to come up with productions in both English and Hindi in order to get both the older and the younger generations who are not very fluent in Hindi involved.

The Mousetrap begins with a scream and a radio announcement leading to the facts that a murderer is on the prowl in the middle of the worst snowstorm England has faced. Not an auspicious start for the owners of Monkswell Manor Guest House, Molly(Rinku Rajan) and Giles Ralston(Rahul Bali), who as it is, have no help and not much information about the five guests who have registered to check into the place. The murderer is described as “person of medium height, wearing a dark coat, light felt hat and with a muffler over the face" a description that could fit a man or a woman. There is a note with three blind mice near the body with one of the mice cut out and two remaining. 

The five guests bring their own baggage and eccentricities as details begin to emerge. “All of our guests are either unpleasant or odd,” Mollie says to her husband about the strangers and soon-to-be suspects. There is the over exuberant and hyper active architect, Christopher Wren(Gaurav Bakshi) the pompous ex magistrate Mrs. Boyles(Ketna Mistry), the bull doggish military man Major Metcalfe(Sanjay Mannan), the brash and aggressive woman Leslie Casewell( Prachi Mehta) and the strange foreigner, who turns up out of the blue because his car overturned in the snowstorm, the irreverent Mr. Parvicini(Swaroop Nyshadham).

Just when every one is beginning to get spooked out, a police detective (Anurag Goel) skies in to question the snowbound suspects. Then another murder takes place soon after, and the whodunit game begins. 

The detective starts probing in to the past of every guest and carefully planted red herrings, insinuations and innuendos make it seem as if every one present is some how linked to the tragic childhood of two young children and perhaps the murder. The seemingly innocent nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice resonates again and again in the interiors adding to already frazzled nerves. Things aren’t often as they seem, becomes the underlying mantra and when the truth emerges it is as surprising as all endings Agatha Christie had become so well known for.

The 1940s set was reproduced with flawless detail. For that, Co director Anuraag Misraraj gives credit to Purna Ahuja an art teacher and Abhir Malik who is Head of Industrial Design at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture. Several others with carpentry skill helped out to create the ambience of an old home converted into an inn.

All the characters did justice to their roles but Rinku Ranjan as Molly and Gaurav Bakshi as the flighty Chris Wren were outstanding. Rahul Bali’s little gestures, and over all performance were great but he needs to speak up a little bit, as a lot of his dialogues were lost in his soft delivery.

I hope that the Atlanta audiences will continue to support such ventures. It takes several months of meticulous rehearsals, taking time off from busy schedules for the actors who do this for the love of theater and have full time jobs, otherwise, to come up with a flawless presentation like this.

Saakaar plans to showcase a spring production which is likely to be a comedy in Hindi. Watch out for that as it is sure to be a great experience.
For more information on Saakaar go to www.saakaar.net