Tag Archives: play

A Special Bond 2 by Akvarious Productions

Dir: Akarsh Khurana

Last week, I had a chance to watch Special Bond 2 on stage – a collection of Ruskin Bond’s short stories rather well enacted in stage. The adventures of three children in the hills of Dehradun were definitely a delight to watch.

The play is technically not strong at all. The lighting was average and the sounds were just suitable. The whole show was on the shoulders of the actors who took the comedy forward by dialogues alone.

I’ve always believed playing the role of a child is very difficult. When adults play the role of children, they seem and sound like ‘mad’ adults. This play was different. The actors did a fantastic job in playing children and portray childhood very innocently. Laudable effort.

Each episode (a short story) was very compact, 10-12 minutes at most. A nice collection of stories (Ruskin Bond’s of course) put quite well together made for happy viewing. At least the children in front of me laughed and clapped to their heart’s content.

Me being me, had a very small problem. In one of the episodes, the male lead Ranji gets attracted to a girl (these are 8-12 year old kids, mind you) who comes from London. The girl is well dressed, well behaved, well spoken and foreign. The Indian female friend of Ranji’s is shabbily dressed, not-well-behaved (by accepted standards) and is jealous of this new London girl. Ref: Picture to the left!

I can’t see this as anything but an extention of a man’s fantasy and understanding of the world. For an art form like theatre, especially the ones made for children, shouldn’t these sensitivities be kept in mind?!

Anyway, at the end of the play, I got some time to talk to Akarsh Khurana (Director of the play, director-performer of many other plays, screenplay writer for Krish and Krish II) himself. This is our conversation.

What about Ruskin Bond’s writing interested you to make this play?

Basically in 2007, we set out to do a children’s play. We had watched a few plays that we enjoyed and we wanted to do our own as well. What we were looking for was something in English, predominantly. But I was very clear that I didn’t want to take a foreign script. I didn’t want it to be something that didn’t belong to our world. There was always the option of adapting it. But I wanted something that was intrinsically Indian.

One day we were sitting around discussing and we thought why not Ruskin Bond. It was the perfect match. It was set in India but with a western sensibility. So, it kind of worked really well for us. Also, most of it was set in the hills. And the children in the metro have never got a window into that life. It all came together pretty well.

Then there was the matter of permissions. Initially, we were talking to publishers, which ended up being a long drawn process. Then through contacts, I got in touch with Mr. Bond himself. He was very giving. He was very happy that we wanted to use his stories. In fact, we went and performed in Dehradun where he came and watched. He really liked it and called us over to his place the next day. He helped us with the sequel. He suggested stories that we could use. In fact, in the show that you watched today, the part about the mountain camp with the bear was unpublished when we did it first in 2008. It was eventually published. He’s been really supportive.

It has been a fantastic experience working on these stories. We read everything he’d written for children. We wanted to string stuff together. We needed something that children would enjoy. We needed something that is easily put together. Something that was not too complicated to pull off on stage. We tried to do as much justice as possible. Of course, it is impossible to put everything into one part, so the second part was born and now there is talk of the third part.

I spoke to Mr. Bond last month about the third part. I wanted him to change a few things a little bit. We have done plays where Ranji goes to the hills. I wanted to have people from the hills come to the city, which makes it slightly different from the last two plays. He said he is going to mail me some stuff. Let us see. I hope something works out.

I notice that there is a lot of popular culture influence in the play? Singh is Kking, What an idea Sirji and such dialogues are used generously in the play. Is this a conscious effort? What’s the idea behind such an effort? What’s the reason behind not sticking to the original?

Mr. Bond himself told us that we will have to adapt it to make the references contemporary to make it more relate-able for audiences of today. A lot of credit for this actually goes to the actors. A lot of these plays evolved on the rehearsal floor. We have a script and then a lot of modernisation came about on the rehearsal floor. I’ve been running this play for over 5 years now and the play evolves every time we stage it. Mr. Bond told us that we have managed to maintain the essence of the stories and still be suitably mad. Yes, it is a conscious effort to make it more relate-able to our audiences.

How do you like the audiences in Bangalore? Is the theatre going audience in Bangalore better or worse than anywhere else, according to you?

I’ve been performing in Bangalore for over 4 years now. Primarily in Ranga Shankara and we’ve done shows in schools as well. We’ve been coming to Bangalore quite regularly with all sorts of plays. I personally enjoy performing for Bangalore audiences. It is very nice that there is a very enthusiastic theatre going audience here. Perhaps the venues are responsible for creating that.

For example, recently we did another play called the interview, which won a couple of awards as well. But may be because it is set in the corporate world, the response that came from Bangalore was unprecedented. I would say that in terms of their wavelength, understanding and sensibility, they are at par with Bombay. After Bombay, I would be very happy to stage a play in Bangalore and I don’t have to worry about the content. It could be dark, controversial or political, I know that Bombay and Bangalore will probably accept it. But when I go to places like Delhi or other smaller places, all kinds of content may not necessarily work. But in Bangalore, I can rest assured that I can come with anything and at least I will get some people to watch it, whether they like it or not depends on the quality of the production. But Bangalore is a smart sensitive audience and that’s why we keep coming back here.

How different is it to perform for children from performing for adults? What efforts do you put into making it happen? Is one easier than the other?

I think the moment you start differentiating, the problem arises. I think children are a lot more intelligent than we’d like to believe. I’ve seen plays for kids that are dumbed down. They are kind of spoon-feeding kept in mind that kids might not follow. But kids are really smart. They are exposed to a lot of stuff these days.

They are the most entertaining audiences to perform for because they are so genuine with their reactions. Also, they are the most difficult to perform for because they have smaller attention spans. You need to keep them hooked right from the beginning. Their parents might be more giving because they are following everything.

All the plays that we’ve done for children, at no point of time have we tried to dumb it down. We have told our stories as it is. Look at animated films like Shrek. There is as much adult humour as for children. They are catching on to it. I don’t think there is any kind of watering down necessary for children.

It is more difficult to perform for children. You have to make sure that there is never a dull moment. You can’t let them slip up. But what’s reassuring is that there are a lot of adults who come with as much positive response as children. They come later and tell us that they had a great time and it is really heartening for us. Somewhere I think it is Bond’s story telling that is theatrical.

Can you introduce your actors to us? Have they all been with the production from the beginning?

We do not have a rigid repertory. There are a few actors who perform for us regularly. The cast for this play has gone through a lot of iterations and some of them have remained. The boy who plays Ranji has been with the production for five years. The man who plays Chaukidaar has also been from the beginning playing multiple parts. The guy who plays the leopard also has been with us from the start.

It’s a great bunch of actors, flexible, thinking on their feet all the time. It is not easy performing for children. We’ve had children walk on the stage and take the ghost’s glove and the monkey’s head off, hug the bear. It is always incorporated into the play and performed.

What else are you currently working on?

I just finished Krish 2. I might be casting for the film as well. Theatre has become fulltime for me. My film projects are more spaced out. We’ve done more than 100 shows this year. We are constantly travelling. In terms of theatre, we have opened a couple of plays this years. We opened one called Rafta Rafta which has been pretty successful. A comedy about Indian family in the UK. In comedy, we opened a children’s play. We opened Peter Pan. We are also playing Baghdad wedding at festivals. It is a far more serious political play. Our longest running play is all about women. The writer of the play is launching all about men which might be next on the cards.  We are also travelling with existing shows. We are performing at the Hindu metroplus festival in Chennai with the Interview.

Am I safe in assuming you like theatre more than cinema today?

No. I like both mediums equally. The threate company became full fledged and needs more attention. It is going in the right path. By next year, it should be able to sustain on its own and I will have more time to concentrate on cinema.

Evam’s first rush!

A few days ago, I was invited to review one of Evam’s new plays. This blogpost is perhaps the result of one of my bad decisions. The play I watched was the product of a workshop that Evam conducted for theatre enthusiasts. Before I get to the play itself, here is a quick recap of the effort behind it.

Rather cheekily named ‘first rush’, this play is the last mile of Evam’s theatre movement for amateurs/ enthusiasts. A few enthu-cutlets came together and took the workshop. I’ve been told that the workshop wasn’t an acting workshop but a theatre workshop. They got to learn and experience more than just acting.

Deeban says, “I was handling the production manager’s responsibilities and got lot of mentoring, tips and tricks of trade from Pavithra from booking the auditorium to budgeting, coordinating ticketing, promotions etc.”

So, the people who did the workshop are definitely not complaining. At the end of these sessions, they decided to come together and present Ed Monk’s The Cut for an audience. The original script of The Cut is available here, if you like.

To begin with, the play had layers. There is a lot of confusion and stories inside stories playing out. At the end of the first act, when you see that the play is going to have layers, you sit up and begin to concentrate. And then, hell breaks loose. Many characters get introduced one after another and they hardly register in our minds.

The worst part of the ‘drama’ is that they tend to make this one an accent comedy as well. I’ve written before how Evam isn’t the best in doing them. There are so many accents that none of them are particularly distinguishable. There was this lady speaking in an accent that could be influenced by Telugu or Tamil, but is nothing more than annoying. The play begins with a British accent and then sails through many accents that don’t seem to add much value to the play.

There is also a part of the play that is completely in Hindi, written by the actors themselves. The south Indian that I am, this part was totally lost on me. At the end of the play, it seemed too long and painful.

Not everything was so bad. Rather interestingly, most actors in the play were slightly overweight or were lisping. It goes very well with Evam’s intentions of bringing theatre to the masses. For first time actors, they all did a great job, no doubt. As a play, it did not serve the audiences as much as they’d have liked!

Urban Turban

It’s stand up comedy. So, obviously, it is racist, sexist and every other –ist in the world. If you are ready to deal with it, it is a laughter riot.

The show begins with Monty Python’s always look on the bright side of life (which seemed quite like the actors were still doing their make up and they had to kill time). Immediately after, they sing a pettairap version of we will rock you. At the end of that is an introduction to the play. Evam‘s Urban Turban is the (funny) story of four people narrated in their own words by themselves, of course.

Image courtesy: Bookmyshow.com (for want of a better free image)

First up is @Aravind_SA: Assistant Director, two-time visa reject, loud mouth from down south. He has three stories. His story as an assistant director talking in Tamil to pigeons, his love for Leeds United and his humiliation at the hands of the UK Home Office and of course a childhood love story. He has an adorable Chennai accent and an uncanny ability to enact his sorry state of affairs in the most funny of ways. He’s got some killer lines and better expressions! Here, the joke is on him.

Next comes this boy from Coimbatore! It’s a shame I don’t remember his name. Or perhaps he didn’t say it clear enough. In his story, the joke is on us. He is the regionalist (if there is such a word) comedian. His jokes are on Coimbatore and on Bangalore. The dance at the pub was my favourite out of the whole gig. He has some great stories about squatting in a western toilet and dancing at a Chennai pub.

Madhuri’s stories were the most drab of them all. She begins with her self-proclaimed embarrassing story of being dumped by the boyfriend she met on bharatmatrimony. She begins very slow, stand still most of the show and the best joke in her whole gig is that her ex-boyfriend’s name was Sam, short for Nikhil. As a phoren-return to Chennai, I was expecting racist, sexist rib ticking comedy. Good or bad that didn’t happen, she had finished before we knew.

The last gig was expectedly the best of them all. Yudi aka fit-in-the-longest-name-you-know had the funniest story. From a Nepali boy in Chennai, this is a completely racist, sexist, regionalist, crack-a-joke-at-anything-that-moves gig! Every line was hilarious, he interacted the most with the audience and even called a spectator a “lucky b@stard”. The best of his work was the way he brought all other standups together in his gig. He gave a meaning to why these people were in the same show. Stunner boy who’s T-Shirt said ‘I Love CHEnnai’.

If you notice, they were all Chennai people making a joke about the city exuding Chennai-ness.

That said, it was a hilarious show. Tamil film directors, over-acting heroes, visa-seekers, Leeds United fans, schoolboy lovers, Coimbatore cool kids in ice-cream parlous, hostels and roommates, American desis and their moms, l3sbian Indian girls in the US, Gurkhas, Tam Bhrams, auto-drivers and many other vibrant characters brought together in a beautiful bouquet of experiences.

If you dare to laugh at yourself, this one is for you!

Disclaimer: I was invited to review the play and that means I got free “VIP” passes to watch this one (many thanks to @manuscrypts).

39 Steps – a laughter riot that tripped!

The 39 Steps – A comical adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock brought straight from the Broadway by Evam and precisely Bhargav Ramakrishnan. I haven’t watched the play at Broadway or anywhere else and therefore I do not have a scale to measure this against. It’s a great thing I think. So, I am going to rate this in absolute and not relativity. :)

Image courtesy: Evam

I am going to skip the story and the introduction for now. You can read Evam’s version here. And of course, you can Google to read around. Evam’s 39 Steps is simply a comical rendition of a murder mystery spanning itself through London and parts of Scotland. It is four-people playing about 140 characters and I must say, they’ve played it with panache.

After having Annabelle Schmit (or Smith with an accent, was it?) dead in his house, Richard Hannay (rather charmingly played by Navin Balakrishnan) escapes to Scotland in search of a Professor that she had spoken about. He embarks on a train journey which is very tactfully and efficiently executed by the team. Sunil and TMK play tens of roles in this one sequence and each one of them register very well. The train journey, the seats, the conversations, the cops, the scene where they all move back and forth to signify the train coming to a stop, the moving board that says ‘Edinburgh’, the men who are selling newspapers and everything about that train journey was enjoyable to say the least, awesome to exaggerate! The sound, the light, the action and the audience laughter were all well synchronised.

There are many such instances of awesomeness in the play. The scene where Hannay is arrested and taken in a car by the Scotland Yard, the next scene where Hannay and lady (I forget her name and can’t be bothered google-ing) run away handcuffed, the Professor’s house that is big in my head because they opened so many doors before they met the Professor and the list goes on.

But there is a big problem in a major part of the play being an accent comedy. The woman who calls herself Annabelle Schmit begins the ‘accent comedy’ with her French or German or European or whatever accent it is (with the intermittent usage of ‘ze’ for ‘the’). It could be noticed without much effort that when she is delivering her lines faster than usual she forgets the ‘ze’ and so it seems rather forced on her.

A few minutes into the play, Hannay lands in Scotland, THE land of accent comedy. This is where the play seems so misplaced. I can’t recollect anything beyond ‘whose hoose (Scottish for house) is it?’ and the total miscarriage of the pronunciation of ‘r’. As a total fan of the Scottish accent, I was very disappointed. Everybody in the play is speaking a very distinct Indian accent and so the accent comedy falls flat on its face. A little more effort into understanding and internalising the accents could have done a world of good!

TMK for some weird reason ended up playing many women roles. The screeching, desperate women roles are essayed very stereotypically in the play. I should convince myself by saying, “it was much expected”.

This is not the best Evam play I’ve watched, perhaps because it hasn’t been perfected yet! If they are really looking to take it abroad, farther than Asia, they have a lot of work ahead of them. They need their share of “bad” reviews to take from!