"To add my own blend of intense spirituality (Adhyatma in the Upanishadic sense, of the unrighteous king), social actions (again of the unrighteous kind) and just the practice of theater as a social action are themselves a demanding aesthetic process and spiritual probing. Yes, I am full of contradictions, ambiguities, and ambivalence. So is this play, the world and life. We try orchestrating all that into deep, truthful harmony on board- 'Mattibandi'", voices S Raghunandana, the director of Mritchakatika.
'Good Guys Die, Too' is the message that is sought to be conveyed through this modified rendering of Mritchakatikam, which will show the problem of love, revolution and renunciation in the play through a directorial soliloquy.
The text is endlessly rich, fascinating and deceptively romanticized. Charudatha, the hero, is generally played as ineffectual, a romantic weakling. In most productions he is seen as an unwitting bewildered martyr. But this thin Dheera Shanta Nayaka is actually a friend of a rebel leader and a cowherd Aryaka. Charudatha remains silent in court mainly to protect Aryaka, and not merely out of love for Vasantasena. In this rendering, Charudatha is played as a strong, warm, generous, courageous and sensitive hero.
"The bottomline in this production is that Charudatha dies - he's beheaded. Good guys also sometimes, actually many times, die! So that the great cosmic play may go on, they sacrifice themselves. Here, too, Vasantasena renounces the world. But the cosmic play goes on. So also the Mritchakatikam will live on