Hello, i am himanshi. Here i write a blog about Hard Times play review, as a part of Thinking activity. Given from the paper no - 4, Literature of the Victorians. But before discussing about the play. It is very important to know about the original novel and it's author. So let me first write about the novel.
Hard times by Charles Dickens :-
"Hard Times: For These Times", is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirises the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times, a social protest novel of nineteenth-century England, is aptly titled. Not only does the working class, known as the "Hands," have a "hard time" in this novel; so do the other classes as well. Dickens divided the novel into three separate books, two of which, "Sowing" and "Reaping," exemplify the biblical concept of "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap". Firstly let me discuss about the short summary of novel Hard Times.
Summary of the novel : Hard Times :-
Before summary let me put video of the movie based on novel Hard Times.
Thomas Gradgrind, a wealthy, retired merchant in the industrial city of Coketown, England, devotes his life to a philosophy of rationalism, self-interest, and fact. He raises his oldest children, Louisa and Tom, according to this philosophy and never allows them to engage in fanciful or imaginative pursuits. He founds a school and charitably takes in one of the students, the kindly and imaginative Sissy Jupe, after the disappearance of her father, a circus entertainer.
As the Gradgrind children grow older, Tom becomes a dissipated, self-interested hedonist, and Louisa struggles with deep inner confusion, feeling as though she is missing something important in her life. Eventually Louisa marries Gradgrind’s friend Josiah Bounderby, a wealthy factory owner and banker more than twice her age. Bounderby continually trumpets his role as a self-made man who was abandoned in the gutter by his mother as an infant. Tom is apprenticed at the Bounderby bank, and Sissy remains at the Gradgrind home to care for the younger children.
In the meantime, an impoverished “Hand” Dickens’s term for the lowest laborers in Coketown’s factories named Stephen Blackpool struggles with his love for Rachael, another poor factory worker. He is unable to marry her because he is already married to a horrible, drunken woman who disappears for months and even years at a time. Stephen visits Bounderby to ask about a divorce but learns that only the wealthy can obtain them. Outside Bounderby’s home, he meets Mrs. Pegler, a strange old woman with an inexplicable devotion to Bounderby.
James Harthouse, a wealthy young sophisticate from London, arrives in Coketown to begin a political career as a disciple of Gradgrind, who is now a Member of Parliament. He immediately takes an interest in Louisa and decides to try to seduce her. With the unspoken aid of Mrs. Sparsit, a former aristocrat who has fallen on hard times and now works for Bounderby, he sets about trying to corrupt Louisa.
The Hands, exhorted by a crooked union spokesman named Slackbridge, try to form a union. Only Stephen refuses to join because he feels that a union strike would only increase tensions between employers and employees. He is cast out by the other Hands and fired by Bounderby when he refuses to spy on them. Louisa, impressed with Stephen’s integrity, visits him before he leaves Coketown and helps him with some money. Tom accompanies her and tells Stephen that if he waits outside the bank for several consecutive nights, help will come to him. Stephen does so, but no help arrives. Eventually he packs up and leaves Coketown, hoping to find agricultural work in the country. Not long after that, the bank is robbed, and the lone suspect is Stephen, the vanished Hand who was seen loitering outside the bank for several nights just before disappearing from the city.
Mrs. Sparsit witnesses Harthouse declaring his love for Louisa, and Louisa agrees to meet him in Coketown later that night. However, Louisa instead flees to her father’s house, where she miserably confides to Gradgrind that her upbringing has left her married to a man she does not love, disconnected from her feelings, deeply unhappy, and possibly in love with Harthouse. She collapses to the floor, and Gradgrind, struck dumb with self-reproach, begins to realize the imperfections in his philosophy of rational self-interest.
Sissy, who loves Louisa deeply, visits Harthouse and convinces him to leave Coketown forever. Bounderby, furious that his wife has left him, redoubles his efforts to capture Stephen. When Stephen tries to return to clear his good name, he falls into a mining pit called Old Hell Shaft. Rachael and Louisa discover him, but he dies soon after an emotional farewell to Rachael. Gradgrind and Louisa realize that Tom is really responsible for robbing the bank, and they arrange to sneak him out of England with the help of the circus performers with whom Sissy spent her early childhood. They are nearly successful, but are stopped by Bitzer, a young man who went to Gradgrind’s school and who embodies all the qualities of the detached rationalism that Gradgrind once espoused, but who now sees its limits. Sleary, the lisping circus proprietor, arranges for Tom to slip out of Bitzer’s grasp, and the young robber escapes from England after all.
Mrs. Sparsit, anxious to help Bounderby find the robbers, drags Mrs. Pegler a known associate of Stephen Blackpool in to see Bounderby, thinking Mrs. Pegler is a potential witness. Bounderby recoils, and it is revealed that Mrs. Pegler is really his loving mother, whom he has forbidden to visit him: Bounderby is not a self-made man after all. Angrily, Bounderby fires Mrs. Sparsit and sends her away to her hostile relatives. Five years later, he will die alone in the streets of Coketown. Gradgrind gives up his philosophy of fact and devotes his political power to helping the poor. Tom realizes the error of his ways but dies without ever seeing his family again. While Sissy marries and has a large and loving family, Louisa never again marries and never has children. Nevertheless, Louisa is loved by Sissy’s family and learns at last how to feel sympathy for her fellow human beings. This how novel runs and conclud.
Now after knowing about storyline of the novel, let me discuss about the drama based on novel Hard Times.
Review of the Hindi play based on Hard Times :-
"Hard Times", a musical adaptation of Dickens novel of the same name, by khilona theatre for children. The play is in hindi and very well portrayed. The play takes 1 hour 47 minutes to complete for. We had already studied all the characters in advance and also a storyline of the novel. So it was very easy to us to understand the play well. And we enjoyed it a lot. The characters are similar to novel. And even therw where many minor changes they made in drama. Let we discuss about the cast team and actors of the drama.
Cast team and actors in drama :-
Director and costume designer :- kiran deep Sharma.
Adaptation and editing :- V. K. Sharma
Lyrics :- V. K. Sharma.
Music director :- Kashish sharma.
Voice training and flute :- Esraseher jung
Arti vasan :- Jane and Josephine.
Akash Hingorani :- Josiah Bounderby, clown.
Abhishekh :- childrens, jupe, doctor.
Chitra :- clown, mrs. Pegler.
Isha :- mrs. Gradgrind, mrs. Sparsit.
Jyotsana :- louisa
Kajori :- Rachel
Kiran deep sharma :- singer
Kunal :- Tom, Clown
Lakshya goel :- Stephen, narrator, stunts man.
Prakash :- mr. Sleary, james Harthouse.
Pulkit :- butler, clown
Santosh :- Dilkhush, circus crowd.
Saif :- Bitzer, stuntsman.
Sajid Anwer :- mr. Chokumchild, kidder, stephen's wife.
Shubham :- sissy
Sudipto Banerjee :- mr. Gradgrind.
V. K. Sharma :- narrator.
Lighting :-
Lights are very well used in the drama. They did Very good use of spot lights in some parts. For example when Cecelia tell her experience to Louisa, director use two spot lights one for louisa and tom and another for sissy and mr. Mcchoakumchild. It seems quit interesting to the audience and seems like the drama has high dramatic qualities. Also when the situation gets serious or the scene in which something abnormal act take place, at that time they used red light on the whole stage. Which is the symbol of tension or we can say problems. So that thing was also mentioned there well.
Dialogues :-
Script is seems like stick to the original novel. Many times they used original lines from novel, Is in English. As specially the person who is narrating the play uses this kind of lines and words from original text. As he introduced the cocktown and imaginative characters, that is crested curiosity among the audience for play. Most of the script is simply translation of original play. But even if in hindi it was performed so well by all the characters.
Loud expressions :-
Sometimes while watching drama. We may feel that expressions of all characters are quite louder. And we can say not normal. For example josiah Bounderby and mrs. Sparsit gave the expressions loud according to incidents.
Time, place, action and other stage rules :-
the three principles derived by French classicists from Aristotle's Poetics; they require a play to have a single action represented as occurring in a single place and within the course of a day. These principles were called, respectively, unity of action, unity of place, and unity of time. When we analyses the play. We may find that this unities are not followed exactly in the play. Of course the play starts and end in the cocktown, an imaginative town.and that is the sighn that unity of place is followed well. But the drama is not completed within a course of day, so unity of time declined there. The play starts with the childhood of Luisa and sissy and ends with their young age. It means the story runs more than 20 or 30 years. And that is something against to unity of time.
Also when we think about unity of action, we find that, something makes us disagree that the play followed the unity of action.there where many other rules also for drama and stage. One of that i found which followed well in the drama, you should not show death and fire, war scenes on stage. And that was followed when Stephen Blackpool is almost close to death they sent him off to stage while is in novel he is died in the lap of Rachel. Also they wasn't show war scenes and fire scenes on stage. So that rules are also followed well.
Direction of the play :-
The play directed so well. If we analyses the whole play, we find that at many place we found the charm of best direction. As they start the play with song.The various setting on same time, in one stage, one is in imagination and one to show present condition, and lighting according to it. That is enough to show that the play directed well. Also they show flashback in drama very well. Symbol of stare case, and luisa step down from stare case is good attempt to show her downfall. At the end of the play where tom is in circus, that seen played very interestingly by performing various stunts with ring and joker, and with the music.
Use of mime :-
The another form of drama used well in the play. They used mime form to portray some elements such as fire and tree. The actors themselves created fire by waving their hands and became a tree by standing in such kind of positions. So here we find combination of two different drama forms.
Songs in play :-
There are five songs are there in drama. And preformed beautifully. One song is in starting as a corus, one in ending, and other three in between. By the use of songs they tried to potray either the situation of industrial revolution time or show the condition of character. And that is something marvellously done in it.
Language in drama :-
Language is also uses in very symbolic way. Circus people used metaphorical language. Their life and language is reflected emotions, composition, imagination. Where in another side characters like Bounderby and Gradgrind uses straight language. Language filled with logic, and Rationality. In the another part of drama where Luisa compared her life with Fire. That is also ironical images he portrayed for her poor condition and his causes. Mrs. Gradgrind feels that there is something missing by them in life. And she feels it when Sissy is around her. She try to explain the lack of emotions and love in their life by this metaphorical language. Show her inner confusion about life through it.
Here, is the video of full play, Which i review in this blog.
Words :- 2157
Paragraphs :- 12
Images :- 3
Videos :- 2
References :-
1) cliffsnotes.com
2) sparknotes.com
3) Brittanica.com
