Kathmandu Innovative set design grabs your attention. A pair of eyes is seen on the wall while ears, nose, and lips are screened on the blocks kept on the floor. A colourful uterus-shaped image changes its shape repeatedly. And there is an ice block on which blood drips (depicting death in general). Paper plates are pasted on the walls indicating the digital world. The characters appear wearing pig and Buddha masks. White mice kept in nine boxes which are lit in different colours signify different characters in the play. Every time a character starts delivering dialogues, the assigned box appears. For instance, when Kemankar (Sujan Oli) starts speaking the box moves down, metaphorically showing his greed and hatred. And the charm of this innovative set is enhanced by changing lights. Watching all this amazes you during staging of Malini, Rabindranath Tagore’s play. Directed by Bimal Subedi, the play kicked off at Theatre Village, Lazimpat on January 7. Dealing with the themes of love, hatred, friendship, devotion, sacrifice, loyalty among others the play has been improvised and more metaphors are added. To deal with greed, hatred and blood, white mice and masks of pigs are used. Hook is used to symbolise how people are manipulated. The hook also symbolises how people become a puppet. Use of pen drive in the play shows how people are slaves to modern technology. The use of plastic machine guns tries to give the play a modern touch. The fashion show sequence in the play shows consumerism and 20th Century Malini. Metaphors in the play could be difficult for audience to fathom, but a little effort might do the trick. A brilliant use of technique to show war, peace and the sense organs are something that is usually not seen in Nepali theatre. The lighting, sound and use of multimedia are at its best. And the narration adds the flow to the play. The story is of Malini (Rojita Buddhacharya), daughter of king (Dillip Rana Bhat), is taught by Buddhist monks. She is not attached to the materialistic pleasures. Thus, she isn’t seen wearing expensive jewelleries and fancy dresses. As she starts giving lessons on Buddhism in the palace people become angry, they feel she is against Hinduism. The agitated Hindu Brahmins want to banish Malini from the palace. Kemankar is the leader of agitators and his childhood friend Supriya (Shrawn Rana) does not support this idea. There are slight improvisations where Bhat narrates the dialogue of the queen too. The king, Malini and other characters are not traditional with their clothes and riches. Their attires are replaced with plastics and wrappers of noodles. Bhat is brilliant in fluency of his dialogue delivery, and as a caring and loving father. Although it’s just narration of queen’s dialogues, Bhat somehow carries that off with finesse. When it comes to Oli, one can feel the hatred and anger he portrays. When Oli as Kemankar points gun at Rana, you can feel hatred towards the character oozing out. Compassion and love are beautifully shown by Buddhacharya and Rana. Buddhacharya charms everyone with her catwalk, the decent look, soft spoken demeanour, her love and care justifying Malini. The play is being staged till January 17 everyday at 4:15 pm except on Wednesdays.