REALLY, NOW?

STAGED BY ‘SHARAS’ PRODUCTIONS

NOTE: If you find this review to be humorous, you’re mistaken. If you don’t, you’ve got issues. Or you’re part of the ‘Sharas’ unit. Poster/names/insignia used neither with the consent, nor with prior permission obtained from the production group. Sue me. And once again, expletive-alert. If you have issues with the throw of words, I kindly advise you to stop reading any further. For this could be my most offensive effort at film/dramatic criticism ever. And a personal one as well. A first.

Their play had exactly what they claimed it had (‘Meta-theatre’, for dummies). A beginning. A middle. And an end. That’s as much as I can give to Saraswathi hostel’s production of Stoppard’s ‘the Real Inspector Hound.’ The Theatre-Fest version, I felt, progressed and we found ourselves struck by passable fascination as every facet of its actors’ potential was uncovered in the course of the play. It had mood, it had a certain deliberation towards elegance which I thought was intended, and it had Kalki Koechlin play a ravishingly convenient stereotype. The copycat version, on the other hand, limped along one leg at best with a squeak every now and then. Like a broken toe on an overweight tween.

And it had Saudamini, who plays yet another stereotype: the quintessential ‘insti-female-play-actor’ who can be roughly characterized as ‘smutty, amateurishly, with an arrowhead’s deliberation at crass humour even which, in effect, is non-existent.’ Do not bother to look that up on the Urban dictionary. It’s one of my own. I shall share it in detail with you if you’d like me to.

Her Cynthia, who’s supposed to be the sensual crux and pivot-point of the play, is unabashedly deglamorized. She wears a pillowcase, for heaven’s sake! And she porno-talks and kisses more than one person, but only behind a Japanese fan from the Audrey Hepburn wardrobe. A twitchy, freakishly-funny procedure that shouts 'Let us Kiss!' Where’s Zack and Miri when you need them? (You’d understand what I’m talking about only if you’ve watched the Kevin Smith movie as well as this train-wreck)

Jokes apart, I found her performance as inept as it was unnecessary. And of course, funny, including and especially those places it wasn’t supposed to be. Like when she stands between lines with a compulsive twitch or turn just to show a stay in character. Or lack thereof. Her tattoo acted better, I felt. It shut up and stayed still; warrants a special mention for that. Sushmita as Felicity was worse; hurtful, actually. One wishes she had gone a little easier on the eye; a lot stronger on the ear. Her Felicity, we find, speaks to herself. The audience is unnecessary. These were the two characters that made the Quaff Theatre production endurable. This version, on the other hand, throws an ultimatum. To stay or not to stay.

I did, incidentally. I wasn’t going to miss the climax for anything, given I knew exactly what was going to happen. It has an on-stage gunshot from a gun that shoots twice, miraculously, with a single pull on the trigger. Or wait… Three times, to be precise. It was like Albert could not wait any longer. Wheelchair mishaps are so embarrassing; plus, the beard must itch. The man was in a rush, looking for a kiss that he’d never get. For Cynthia didn’t have her fan with her this time. Duh!

Of course, I can’t talk. I’m someone who wrote and directed a double-disaster last time: two shoddy translations-to-stage of the same play (‘the Patricide’ that I killed). I played the wrong track for the climax that I changed halfway through, the first time around. Next time, we staged a complete Farce. Of my own play. Against intention. This director (whoever he/she is) has worked a miracle, comparatively, pulling this off. But then, it’s like Will Hunting says to Sean Maguire in ‘Good Will Hunting.’ “You spend all your money on these fucking fancy books, you surround yourselves with them. Except they’re the wrong fucking books.” Well, ‘the Real Inspector Hound’ is the wrong fucking play. Plus it has been done this season, and moderately well. Doing it again is like a ‘Transformers 3’ re-release. It was tortuous enough the first time around. Kindergarten skits are more honest. The phone-sex hotline would do better accents. The upside about this thing, I felt, was the swap of the maid for an effeminate butler (rules don’t permit a third actress) who comes up with a noteworthy performance. That was the only detail that pushed on the bar a little. It was kid stuff, otherwise.

‘this Real Inspector Hound’, in all, was an hour-long squeeze of a one-and-a-half hour play – a slurry of fake accents, bad girl-costumes (the menswear was fine, especially the trench copy-coat: Thumbs up for that) and a tasteless rendition with a stolen set. In short, it had every ingredient for Litsoc success. It actually placed second, losing out to a one-act clown-comedy show featuring… clowns. I felt like I was at Vaudeville, yesterday. God help theatre. Or at least Litsoc Dramatics. If that’s even possible.

APPLICANT STATUS: ---UNDER REVIEW---

DIRECTED BY AKARSH KHURANA

STARRING: KARAN PANDIT, KASHIN SHETTY, ADHIR BHAT and PRERNA CHAWLA

I thought ‘the Interview’ would go on to be an “it’s so mean it’s actually funny” sort of dark comedy, but it arrested that thought by showing some soul towards the end. I was confused. I chanced to ask this question to director Akarsh Khurana himself, who was kind enough to spare a few minutes for a little chat we shared. But I found his answer unconvincing. He said the sensitivity of their play (written by Siddharth Kumar) depended on the sensitivity of the audience – if we wanted the Boss to be ruthless, he would be, and if we wanted sensitivity then we have that too. A typical entertainer’s answer from a person who doesn’t deny he’s one. I appreciated his honesty but it doesn’t save his play, which is either a painful intrusion of emotions in a laugh riot, or an injection of humour in a social drama, both distinctively spelling ‘half-baked’. On the one hand, it tries to be as crushing as a Coen-invention like ‘A Serious Man’, on the other it takes off in an ‘Up in the Air’ sort of soul-search. I wished I could laugh it off, but then it slapped me with a moral responsibility to take it seriously. I couldn’t decide.

Let this not be mistaken for rawness, even though the play did have ample amounts of it. The presentation was raw, its concept not so. We don’t get to know what happens off-stage, it’s but our own crude extrapolation that we’re entitled to. The interview in itself is obscure, we don’t know who is interviewing who for what post in which corporation. The most we get thrown in are words like ‘Middle Management’, sufficient to define the scenario to a fair level of precision. We have a candidate who has been Boss as well as Employee, set to continue doing the same. There’s his superior in Keith who views him as a potential threat, a pawn moved against his own corporate status. And ultimately, we have the ‘Boss’ as part of an elaborate Good-Cop-Bad-Cop routine with the occasional turn of table. To add to this, there’s also a Secretary who plays both cause and effect in a distorted centre of attention.

The Interviewee corners his bosses, the ‘played’ gets to play back. We delve into fantasy in a flesh-and-blood guise – there simply can’t be a soft ending. The play takes a sensitized turn; a downgrade for the sake of subsequent climactic peak. And the ending isn’t ‘crushing’ or ‘horribly funny’, it’s just wrong. The characters have their catharses – the ‘Candidate’ in the fact that he’s getting a job, Keith because he’s finally getting his promotion, and the ‘Boss’ because his problem is ‘fixed’ as Keith puts it. The Secretary, on her part, finds the highest form of peace. The problem here is that I was denied mine.

I liked how the Candidate reveals to his Boss that he’s about to marry the woman he once molested. I hated how the Boss responds with a similar story of his own. Bosses don't respond to subordinates, they Boss them! And I liked the sigh of relief as the Candidate breathes an “I got the job!” to his fiancée, but I hated the intersperse of sensitivity between bouts of indifference. It’s like our characters ‘reconcile’ into who they are as opposed to being themselves – a contradiction to corporate mentality. I felt as though Siddharth Kumar was prepared to do anything to reap his share of laughs – a trait I empathized with, the sloppy debut that I’ve been through as a playwright. I liked every imperfection of the play in form of premise and presentation, how actors, as characters, fidgeted when inactive; how their exits were announced but not explained. The play stuck religiously to its sequences, its back-stories giving scope for conscious and unconscious imagination – I liked that.

But then I hated how it got so carried away with its own pet concept, much like how I did. Well, what can I say? I am self-critical. Even more so when I find my flaws manifested in someone else, where I don’t have to go easy on them. This ‘Interview’ brought out the Boss in me. And I don’t fire it altogether for that, but I strongly maintain that I expected something more. It’s an Upper Management thing.

A SHIRK OF 'NECESSITY' AGAINST 'DEMAND'

DIRECTED BY PRASHANT PRAKASH and NAYANTARA KOTIAN

STARRING: KALKI KOECHLIN, NEIL BHOOPALAM, GULSHAN DEVIAH, SUHAAS AHUJA, PRERNA CHAWLA, RATNABALI BHATTACHARJEE, VIVEK GOMBER and PRASHANT PRAKASH

Tom Stoppard slaps convention and kills critics with ‘the Real Inspector Hound’. It’s perhaps a mark of who he hates more. Or perhaps not. I’ve always been biased against parodies for the simple reason that I believe they try to play to two different audiences. It’s like how Zack Brown remarks with the intonation of Kevin Smith in ‘Zack and Miri make a Porno’ on how their ‘Star Wh*res’ would cater to both Star Wars nerds as well as those who consume porn in general. Writers have forever leeched upon this thin line separating a satire from a tribute. And in that context, ‘the Real Inspector Hound’, I thought, liked what it scorned, though there were times when it dared to differ.

Two critics discuss a play in progress. One of them gets to be cozy with the fresh faces, the other is still an understudy and laments about it. The two then proceed on separate streams, often crisscrossing in conversation. The former fantasizes about the actress, the latter strays to places sinister. Tom Stoppard deems one critic an infidel and the other a would-be murderer found guilty in intention. Playwrights shall be overjoyed by this concept, critics would arm their fortresses with tongue-in-cheek. Either way, our critics (in the play) then step into the play-within-the-play one after the other, a ‘whodunnit’ that ties both worlds together. And they find themselves confronted by characters than actors in a recurring sequence such that they know what’s happening and yet fulfill the pre-destined plot.

The play-within-the-play goes into a lull when the critics speak, the critics in turn don’t raise a word when a scene is in progress. They’re an orthodox audience at a conventional play. They don’t interject – they summarize. And they succumb where Stoppard wants them to. Yet, ironically, it’s a critic who has the last laugh and snares the effervescent Cynthia (Kalki Koechlin). Maybe that’s indicative of his favouritism towards a select few. Maybe not. I would never know.

Kalki Koechlin reminds me too much of Eva Green. They’re both French, they’re both petite and graceful, sexy and mature, and they both smoke like kettles! This is a dangerous comparison, however, for it throws Koechlin in brighter light than she warrants for. Nevertheless, she’s fairly eye-capturing and her performance effortlessly outclasses the rest, who are more about fake accents and impersonations. There’s barely scope for directorial credit (or set design) either, lest one ought to throw accolades for not destroying the integrity of the play. But the actors did have good comic timing, consistency and stage presence. They kept the play alive and managed to get all their jokes through to the audience. Neat, but doesn't knock you out. Still commendable, right?

The Q&A session after the play had an Elderly enthusiast ask the cast and crew as to why they didn’t ‘Indianize’ the play. I had an even more fundamental question – why perform this in the first place? ‘the Real Inspector Hound’ was a British play written in 1962, while both Prashant as well as Kalki have ‘proven their ability’ in writing their own draft (‘the Skeleton Woman’). It’s an Indian Theatre Festival in 2011 that features foreign plays as well – where’s the burning need to adapt? Just a thought that irked after an entertaining performance. I shall let you ponder upon it, if you would.

THIS DUCK IS LAME!

DIRECTED BY KARTHIK KUMAR

STARRING: T.M. KARTHIK SRINIVASAN, YUDHISHTHIR RANA, ANIL SRINIVASAN, ANISHA SARAH VARGHESE and KARTHIK KUMAR

‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ takes from David Mamet’s ‘Duck Variations’ as far as its premise goes. It’s about two guys who sit on a bench and philosophize about ducks, drawing parallels where they can. I was reminded of the scene in Gus Van Sant’s ‘Good Will Hunting’ where Will Hunting (Matt Damon) asks his therapist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) if the ducks were some sort of fetish in a ‘taster’s choice moment between guys’. While that sequence went on to prove him wrong, ‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ did nothing to bust an existing conviction of mine – that I was about to watch a bunch of people try too hard. The conversations were stressful, even though the scenarios turned out to be pretty inventive. The setup and performances helped raise a few laughs while the dialogue turned it to a grimace. I wish Indian (English) theatre wouldn’t try to emulate its Western counterpart. It’s like the duck that tries to fly with its wings clipped – it falls too hard.

The play featured three motifs. One was director Karthik Kumar ‘breaking the Fourth wall’ carrying out overwrought audience-interactions. The second is a duo in different scenarios, belting different forms and structures of ‘Mamet-speak’ (a form of dialogue popularized by the American playwright). Thirdly, we had a couple of video clips which tended to not only disrupt the actual flow of the play, but also destroyed its idea as a whole. It’s one thing to reveal the concept, it’s another to just throw it away. ‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ did exactly the latter and seemed happy to do so. To add to this, we had pianist Anil Srinivasan fill in with interludes that got redundant after a while – the play crossed the delicate balance between adequacy in music and an over-score. He had me wishing for that elusive silence that the play began with – something that was harder to get than the fact that ‘the Hindu’ actually included this play in its Theater Fest roster.

Nevertheless, the play was verbose despite its share of glitches (like using ‘seeked’ instead of ‘sought’ and ‘juxtapositioning’ instead of ‘juxtaposing’). It was, in a teeny-tiny little way, a fair bit of fun; the no-brainer kind of fun. The audience, for most part, would not have understood what was going on. I myself had a pair of neighbours who were busy texting on their mobiles, even at the time they were not asked to do so – let me not get down to telling you any more about them. The runtime was too much given the lack of substance, which diluted it even further. Still, it had a fairly continuous narrative that seemed well-motivated, at least until Karthik started pleading with ‘fifteen more minutes of patience’ and then ‘ten more minutes’, consuming a half-hour in that process. That too for sequences which weren’t worth the stretch and served to distort the whole idea of the play. It’s like we walked into a public service announcement – nothing could make it more pretentious.

‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ takes a whole, flawless, magnificent Duck and breaks it to chunks with a crucial lot missing. The whole point of it, in short. And It then proclaims vegetarianism. Of course, I speak in metaphors – after all, I did sit through a 'child's play' that liked to call itself smart.