Arthdosh

This play by the world-renowned French writer Albert Camus is a visual account of the cruelty resulting from mans insatiable yet unfulfilled desires for pleasure, a scene that leaves us stunned. The plays heroine, Martha, runs a small hotel in an inn with her elderly mother. But she dislikes the unattractive and uncomfortable conditions of the place. She longs to live on a remote beach and experience all the joys of lifeto escape her increasingly boring and monotonous life. But this requires a lot of money, so she poisons and kills the occasional travelers who stay at her place. She even keeps her elderly mother with her. One day, when her brother, John, who had left home twenty years earlier, returns to stay there as a traveler, she, along with her mother, murders him as well. When the truth is revealed, she sees no value in the mothers pain, lamentation, and remorse, because simply being compassionate and humane over the murder of her son cannot mitigate the guilt of all the other murders. This is the harsh reality of life, to face which she advises Johns wife, Maria, to turn into stone, so as to face this inhuman society. Needless to say, a woman like Martha, who has become so cruel due to her own pursuit of happiness and her failure to achieve it due to circumstances, also emerges as a sharp satire on this stone-hearted society plagued by economic vices.