PAF reviews: 2. Panchi Re!!!

First of all thanks guys for all the feedback on the previous review, please continue with your comments coz they do help a lot.

So on 22nd evening we had the second PAF of the season “Panchi Re”. The immediate verdict is obviously that it was very very good. The humor, the execution, the energy (in choreo as well as VO and acting) was spectacular. Prod junta did a great job too. The thing that set this PAF apart in my opinion was how they started with an entertaining script and slowly brought in some relevant points without making it abrupt.

A few words on the elements. Voiceovers really surprised me. The voice traits given to every weird character was funny and enjoyable. Infact it was these well delivered traits that saved the regular fumbling and incorrect dialogues. Its upto judges what was more important to them. Acting was good but not consistent. A few scenes clearly looked less rehearsed than others specially the flashes when sajalpur starts facing problems. Those scenes also lacked BG music which could have pulled it through. But still despite this dip the overall energy of the paf remained very high all throughout. Music and Choreo …. “DOUBLE THUMBS UP”. They really performed very well. Great original scores, although there should have been more meeting between script junta and music junta coz I still believe they missed out on BG music in a few very imp scenes. Choreo junta rocked. There were no really never before things but THE ENERGY in itself was something I had never seen before, the Ghana Ghana choreo and the holi choreo really set the pace. I am not a very big fan of UV personally but still the execution of that was also good. Lights junta for a change managed to keep their nerve( :P) so kudos to them too. The center stage prod was awesome, and the village prod was also very neat. Although they could have come up with a few more things for the village in the quadrangle.

Now we come to the one debatable point of the PAF. Almost everybody I spoke with loved the PAF, the humor the elements, etc but there were definitely some debate as to what they were trying to show in the end. I assume that no one’s intention was to take sides in the Marathi vs. bihari issue. But the way the debate was portrayed and the story went on, it sort of crossed the line of being politically correct. One should realize and actually believe that there are always 2 sides of the story, and there is some weight to both sides that’s why the argument exists. Otherwise it would have been solved long back. Still in the debate it seemed that the scales were tilted in the favor of gopu bhaiyaa. And this was a fact felt by many people sitting around me and to some I spoke to afterwards. The argument where the question of violence was raised gopu’s character defended that they “gandhiji protested peacefully coz britishers listened to it… but biharis can only be taught the lesson through violence” was really something you can’t expect people to digest. Infact someone in the audience got so offended that he actually got up and start shouting “ Band karo salo….”. His friends had to pull him down to avoid a scene. One has to realize that if someone can get so offended in the middle of the performance there was a problem. It’s not about saying the bitter truth but the way it was being said slightly crossed the line. I guess a healthy debate while writing this part could have helped iron out this issue, especially it being so sensitive.

Despite all that the final extension towards solution was great. Though not a path breaking solution, it gave a positive end to the story which in such situations is very important. And the final lines of how a bird needs to have both its wings working together to fly along with the choreo and the original score did create that emotional impact they were looking for.

So concluding I would say, great work, superb execution. I don’t remember many pafs in which the energy in everything was so high throughout the PAF. Humor clicked and really got the audience involved. Could have used some more work in a few scenes which were too short and lacked the intensity compared to others, but one can easily overlook that in the overall picture. The only thing that could give a slight negative impression to the judges was like I said the handling of the issue, especially with people getting offended right near the judges table. Still it would take a hell lot of effort to beat his one

Overall rating: 8.5/10

P.S: keep those comments coming people