Byomkesh Bakshi – the detective’s character of a TV serial, I liked a lot, whom I knew quite later as Rajit Kapoor. 
Today we four friends went to see his live performance of Love Letters at Rangashankara. This play written by A R Gurney had been nominated for Pulitzer Prize.
This play has been said to be performed more than 250 times. The dual character drama is based on the letters sent by each other over the span of 50 years. The act of “Andrew Makepiece Ladd III” performed by Rajit Kapoor bought the life in the character. And on the other side the role of “Melissa Gardner” was well justified by Shernaz Patel.
The narrative letters orated by both of them from the two side of stages over their changing years/ scenes was taking audience though the different times and moods of two persons sharing their almost all kind of feelings. Both the actors , in the roles of school students to aged people’s role – they seemed completely immersed into. A flawless performance indeed ! And at the end (when like all love stories) the drama was sad Andy(Andrew) was near to the grave of Melissa – Rajit was crying. And around 3 hours immersed in the role of Andy at the 
time of the final stage appearance – his eyes were still wet.
Adding to wetness of his eyes – was his happiness seeing the standing ovation of houseful Audience. He shared a really good chemistry with Shernaz and I guess they just perfected the characters of ‘Andy and Melissa” without memorizing the script word by word.
It was my first live classical theater experience and was a really satisfying experience. Wish to see more such live performances of great actors in coming days..
( Photo credits: The Hindu , The Tribune )