Butter and Mashed Bananas

Saw this play a while back, 'Butter and Mashed Bananas', with a remarkable storyline, fantastic acting and great direction.

But first let me see if I can outline what this play was about. Was it a jab at our society? Or was it an uppercut to our politicians? Or a left hook to the system we live in? The play was damn funny but extremely thought provoking at the same time. It was very innovative, saw lots of things being depicted in such noteworthy new ways…

But why the hell am I having a tough time describing this play??? It is actually straightforward…it is about a boy who is born to parents, by accident I may add, who belong to the opposite ends of the political and social ideology in India.

Growing up the boy faces struggles to find his own identity, always torn between his parent’s choices. The boy grows up to become a world famous author and writes a brilliant book but surprisingly the book goes completely unnoticed in India. He finds out that his book got censored and did not even make it to the Indian market. He tries to make a film to reach out to the country and that too gets censored. He questions, who is this censor board? What qualifications to they have and what are these limits they agree upon and who decides them? Why is the censor board so random even though it consists of highly reputable people with degrees from the most well known educational institutions of the world?
Anyway his life continues and he decides not to give up and to do something about the system, he joins politics. There he finds himself caught in a terrible mess just because of making some simple statements like “Truth shall prevail” and “The culprits should be caught”. He tries hard but finally other politicians join hands and overwhelm him. He slips away from people’s memory and unappreciated in his own country he fades away…

I don't think the short description here in this post is going to convey how good the play was. The music, played live, the brilliant acting, the directing and the simplicity of it all actually made this play extremely enjoyable but only by actually seeing it will you be able to appreciate what it is and what it does…

More plays...

Been watching a lot of plays these days. Have watched 4 in the past two weeks and all of them have been at Rangashankara. Going for one today also, anyway here are the quick reviews of the ones till now...

Love Letters: This was performed by the troupe Evam and was a touching story about relationship between a man and woman told through letters, spanning about 40 years. The story starts when these two people are just kids and in school. Then it meanders through their lives in which somehow circumstances always keeps them apart. Through letters their whole life is told right until the end...which I won't tell here how it is. The acting was really good. People were saying that this play is the same as 'Tumhari Amrita' but I haven't seen 'Tumhari Amrita' so don't know for sure.

The Odd Couple: Again staged by the Evam troupe, this was a hilarious play about friends. The story is about a really weak and uptight just divorced man who comes to live with his friend who is also divorced. The other guy is very carefree and 'bindas' whereas the just divorced guy kind of the opposite. Surrounding them are another 3 friends. This play was a real laugh riot that I thoroughly enjoyed. Especially the part where they think the divorced guy is going to the bathroom and the rest think he will commit suicide in there which prompts one of them to callously say "What do you think he'll brush himself to death in there!" :D

Yayati: This play was based on the Girish Karnad's adapted screenplay about king Yayati. A good play with decent acting but definitely had flaws. It felt really stretched at various points but was still good. The story is about a king who is drunk on his youth and power and makes all the wrong choices. When only his son Puru who is considered to be a weakling comes through to take off Yayati's curse does he realize how wrong his choices have been and then he starts off to set things right.

The Anklet: The adaptation of a popular mythical story called 'Silappadigaram'. I didn't enjoy the play much at all because it was very stretched. There were parts where I felt like screaming 'get on with it!' Good acting though and good setup but overall the screenplay was just too slow and long. The climax was especially slow and painful. Definitely a flawed play that can improve quite a bit.

Mooru Plays

Saw these 3 plays at the Rangashankara theater…I must say that this theater is just wonderful and I am ever so thankful that it exists.

Art
This play was performed by a Chennai based troupe called Evam.

This one has a very interesting story line…It’s a story about three close buddies who start to fall apart after one of them spends a fortune buying a painting of white lines drawn on white background. There is a bit of technical talk about art but that part I didn’t catch much. But primarily the play explores the interrelationships of the 3 characters as they start measuring their friendship and existence with respect to each other. All this starts with one of them buying the painting, the second guy calling it “shit!” and the third friend somewhat innocent and diplomatic getting horribly caught in between. The piece of art divides the three friends at various angles through out the play as they align and realign amongst themselves. Tempers flare with intensity and they say the bitterest of things to each other but slowly confessions pour out and the dust finally settles.

Overall it was a good performance by all the three characters. I found the characters quite identifiable and the play to be really close to real life situations. There is some extra energy that flows through when you can associate with the situations being portrayed. These were friends just fighting, deliberately saying hurtful and bitter things, falling apart and finally trying to find their friendship again.

Woza Albert!
This play was performed by a troupe called Rafiki. The story is based in South Africa and deals with Apartheid (Woza means rise and Albert is the name of an assassinated leader of South Africa).

Despite the subject it deals with, the play is a comedy (a dark comedy maybe) and it starts with the rumor spreading that God (Jesus/Morena) is coming to South Africa. The rest of the play carries us through vignettes of various emotions that people from all walks of life in South Africa go through. There are two actors in this play and they play numerous characters one after the other showing a range of emotions starting with euphoria and disbelief. Seeing that this news is empowering the black population, the white government starts to clamp down. There are scenes of God meeting common folk and the expectations of these folks ranging from absurd to reality. The ending is again amusing but the message of the play is still serious and dark.

The acting was really energetic and in strange kind of way extremely intense. One of the actors had an extremely expressive face which he thoroughly exploited. He was funny as hell and kept me thoroughly engrossed. There were a couple of scenes depicting the two characters traveling in a train and even flying a helicopter! They did all the sound affects themselves and were really good at it. But the highlight of the play for me was the first 5 minutes where the lights slowly increase and the actors sing an absolutely beautiful folksy kind of song with one of them drumming on a wooden box as the only accompaniment.

Bikhre Bimb
This is a play written by Girish Karnad and Arundhati Nag is the lead actress. Need I say more?!?

The play is a solo act and I saw the Hindi version. The story starts with an author who has written only in Kannada until now suddenly writing an English “upanyas” and becoming a worldwide success. She gives a TV interview where she tells the public story of how she wrote her story, her reaction to the success and answers her critics. The story she has written is about a paraplegic girl and she says the story was inspired by the life of her younger sister who died recently and was also paralyzed since birth. With the interview done, as she is about to leave the studio an image of her appears on the TV and calls her back. What follows is the discussion delving into her family, consisting of her husband and her sister, and the various levels of her own consciousness. The lady and inquisitive TV image carry on conversing revealing a thorny story and a relationship of a dark nature consisting of love, hate and jealousy.

The acting was just superb, as you can imagine talking to a taped person the timing, delivery and placement of the actress had to be spot on for the whole duration.