Bhagwat Tole ma Bholaram, an “abstract play” where a single character is played by four different actors, is currently on stage at Mandala Theatre in Anamnagar. The play is written and directed by Bijay Bisfot.

In the opening moments of the play, the audiences witness a deceased man, left unattended. Enter the ‘single-choric’ commentator, who says that one ought to go into flashback to know how all that came to happen. What ensues is the staging of the lead character’s life before he is dead.

The play’s title character, Bholaram, is a poet, who is played by four different actors—Roshan Subedi, Dilip Khadka, Anil Karki and Dipesh Kaphle. This kind of unusual narrative strategy is applied, according to the play’s assistant director Anuja Adhikari, to highlight the peculiar condition—a sort of an identity crisis—that the character goes through.

Adhikari said that the play, in its essence, is about how “there are so many ‘doctors’—or rather “sallah siromani”—around us who are experts at advising people even though they themselves might not be aware of the repercussions of their advice. One such advice leads the man to death.”

Even though the play, conceptualised by Bisfot himself, doesn’t have an elaborate setting, the characters allude to several settings in and around Kathmandu—such as Sohrakhutte and Pashupati—where the shamans and “pichas” roam.

Bhagwat Tole ma Bholaram features a total of 14 actors, including Pushkar Karki, Norchen Lama, Rosni Karki, and Jyoti Rai, among others.

The play is on stage every day at 5 pm and will run through Feb 4.