Nadja and Hope

It was a surreal experience to enter a calm and quite University premises, to meet many of my school buddies and to catch upon the past over a cup of tea. It gave me some space to escape from the mundane rat race of life, to tread about our school days and to enjoy the dry evening breeze swapping across the cricket ground reminding of old school days and evening rugger practices.

But what actually brought me to the NAT at Colombo University was none of the above. It was a dedicatedly put up Theatrical Experience that I had been longing for some time. Ever since DRG sent me the draft script of his debut drama Nadja, I looked forward to the day that it would become a reality. Unfolding through three short plays, Nadja, which in German means “Hope” takes us back to the final days of World War II and tries to explore the humanity and compassion set within each individual even through dire times. Spanning through a Nazi Death Camp to the final moments in Hitler’s bunker the drama tries to deliver its message by capturing the audience through familiar historical occurrences.

It was great to see the actors, all of whom are from the Management Faculty of Colombo University, putting up a great performance, regardless of the fact that they are not professional actors. I guess this was a great learning curve executed perfectly by everyone who contributed to the drama. The audio visuals and the music were perfectly executed however; some of the interludes seemed a bit too much lagged and left the audience in pitched dark for quite some time. But overall the drama was quite an experience, kudos to DRG, the writer and director of Nadja for a brilliantly executed production!

I came off the theater hall, with a sense of reality striking back, reminding me of the life we would have to get back into, the strains that we would have to fight every day to survive, the boring and dull routines that would have to be fulfilled.

But suddenly I was reminded of Nadja, the girl from the drama, held captive by two Nazi soldiers turned towards the audience…

“My name is Nadja…it means Hope...
Some survived these forsaken times with it…
Some ended their lives without it…
Some even fought for it…
And some made a mockery out of it….
...But I only want to ask you one thing...
Do you have that Hope..?”