The story of an old man whose degenerating brain keeps wandering into a pretty predictable past, doesn’t make for the most exciting plot. What holds the play together is some top-notch acting – and the very interesting use of a hoop.

Right in the center of the stage hangs this hoop. It has no physical existence in the context of the play. We see it; the characters in Mind Walking (except the one hallucinating) do not. The hoop is a doorway to the old man Bobbie (played beautifully by Peter D’Souza)’s thoughts – he steps through it, and he steps into the world his mind has brought alive for him. The hoop is also the dock that the other characters stop at to give vent to their angst. The more intense the angst, the more bizarre Bobbie’s delirium, the wilder the spin of the hoop.

Bobbie’s thoughts venture into territory he has kept away from his family. The promos promised "secrets and hidden stories" tumbling out of Bobbie’s mouth – don’t hold your breath for them. Apart from the first revelation, the rest that follows isn’t terribly surprising. His recounting of life in India can be picked out from a Book of Clichés. The central conflict, revealed in the end, can be seen a mile off. [Since this is an Indo-British collaboration, it may have been a conscious decision to keep the Indian context simple for overseas audiences.]

The only anecdote that stuck out was the little one about Noel Coward – did he really visit Bobbie’s Mumbai home or was Bobbie making that up? If he did, why exactly was he rude to his mother?

Where Mind Walking is most effective is in bringing out the helplessness of Bobbie’s family as they try to make sense of his ramblings. You feel for the daughter’s horror when he mistakes her for his mother, and in another scene at the hospital, her delight when he recognizes her as Rosa. Philippa Vafadari who plays the daughter is a treat to watch emote, especially when she is manoeuvring the hoop. Incidentally, she is also the founder and creative director of the group behind the play, Bandbazi – the word is Persian for "trapeze".

The conversations play out very well. My favourite is one in which the grandson ((Dylan Kennedy) tries to get Bobbie to talk of his cultural identity, and Bobbie is off on a tangent speaking about other things. It is a frustrating conversation till suddenly their lines connect. Another high point is the emotionally charged dialogue between mother and son, both hoisted on the hoop.

Central to the story is the 40-year long marriage between Bobbie and Moira (Kate Dyson). Moira is a model of compassion and deals with Bobbie’s senility with better humour and nerve than the children, a welcome antithesis to the daughter’s torment.

Caring for the elderly and watching them wither can be a devastating experience. Mind Walking deals with the subject with great poignancy and sensitivity. One wishes that every aging person gets a family like Bobbie’s to take care of them.

Notes:

1. How impressive it is when actors wipe off years from themselves with just a change of expressions and posture. Bobbie (Peter D’Souza) and Moira (Kate Dyson) seem effortlessly youthful in the memories of their early days of courtship. I’m also reminded of Love Letters with Rajat Kapoor and Shernaz Patel, in which they show the passage of years without even stepping away from the stage.

2. Special applause for the man linked to the hoop, walking up and down a ladder on the side of the stage to control its movements. No less a performance than that of the four actors on stage.

3. I saw Mind Walking at Jagriti Theatre in Bangalore. It’s a nice and small theatre space, just right for a play with minimal props and an intimate character.

In between real-life narratives of the cast comes a slice of fiction: the tale of Joginder (Ranvir Shorey), a Sikh man whose brain is stuck in a time warp – he can remember nothing of his life beyond 1983.

We get to know Joginder through his conversations with the doctor. Joginder is talkative and friendly. His words tumble out and run into each other, he takes a hundred words to say what could be said in ten, he utters something inappropriate and is endearingly embarrassed. He keeps the audience in splits. He is also the saddest, most disturbing character in the play. His breakdown on seeing his reflection is heartrending – the only consolation is that Joginder soon forgets about it.

This mingling of opposing emotions runs throughout The Blue Mug. Despite its laugh-out-loud moments, the mirth is never let loose for too long – there is always a sombre idea lurking around the corner, almost making us feel guilty for our guffaws of a moment ago.

The doctor’s role, originally played by Konkona Sen Sharma, was played this time by Shipra Singh. If we discount Konkona’s star power, those were probably easy shoes to fill  – the doctor doesn’t have much to do in The Blue Mug. Which leads me to wonder if any other actor could have fit into the role of Joginder so beautifully. I think not. In the way Ranvir Shorey enacts this character, he creates something inimitable, irreplaceable.

The political and cultural climate of the 1970s and 1980s form the backdrop of the cast’s growing-up tales. There is the Emergency, the Sikh riots, the DSP uncle who gets special seats to watch the circus, the distant equation between father and son, the cinema of that era. Cinema  – that crops up very often. For Vinay Pathak, Jyoti Bane Jwala was the scene of bravado of his college dadagiri days; Munish’s first visit to the hall to watch Haathi Mere Saathi was his moment of awe at the screen size; Shakti‘s climax had a lasting effect on Joginder (he calls the 1982 film a new release).

The actors talk in a mix of Hindi and English; the best lines are in Hindi. Vinay Pathak’s essaying of Bharat Bhushan in Bheja Fry film has made such a dent on me, I was taken aback to hear him speak English so fluently – and yet he sounds more in command when he switches to Hindi. His stories in The Blue Mug have the greatest energy and mischief – the take-off on his crazy uncle is priceless! Sheeba Chaddha is another terrific actress. She slips into any role like she was meant to play that and no other.

The actors come together on stage in the last few minutes. The memories recalls gradually condense to one-liners, there is overlap of immediate memories with old ones, there is a blur till we in the audience aren’t sure which is which.

I know many who did not enjoy The Blue Mug too much. If you are looking for a cohesive plot, you will likely be disappointed. According to director Atul Kumar, the play has no fixed script – the actors are free to improvise from show to show. This may come across as self-indulgent; besides, not every memory of another person is as interesting to the audience as the other. If you can engage with each piece on its own, and find some anchors in them for your own memories, you will surely be moved. You will also find yourself  being thankful for the gift of remembrance.

Notes:

[1] Some things never change. Vicco Vajradanti ads that came up in the interval of Jyoti Bane Jwala, still run in the interval of Delhi Belly.

[2] Now listening to Hemant Kumar’s Zindagi Pyar Ki Do Char Ghadi Hoti Hai , the song that plays in the background whenever the scene switches to Joginder – as if to say, life isn’t counted by its length but by the moments of love that fill it.

A joint production of Ranga Shankara and Schnawwl-National Theatre of Germany (called Do I know U?), Boy With A Suitcase is a bildungsroman that follows Naz as he is sent off on a bus by his parents towards the land of "milk and honey". What follows is the kind of arduous adventure Naz’s hero Sindbad could proudly put on his resume: gunfire, wild animal chase, sweatshop, escape, dangerous crossing of water, crawling reach to the destination, disillusionment and eventual acceptance. The lines between fact and fable are fuzzy – we are never quite sure which era or which city we are looking at. And that’s all right – the point is not the place and time but the indomitable spirit of survival.

The play wears its emotions lightly. You’d expect Naz to be devastated at the separation from his parents and his friend Krysia (Simone Oswald), but the young lad takes it all in good humour. Boy With A Suitcase does not also sweat over the minutiae of the journey. The stories that Naz relates are often better fleshed out than the events in his real life. If you go on a logical loophole-finding trip, you will gather a heap. The best way to enjoy Boy With A Suitcase is to play along with it – this work isn’t interested in filling the context with ordinary facts, it would rather fill the context with music. And how well it does that! The musicians aren’t backstage but visible to the audience, often walking around the actors strumming their instruments. You’ll catch yourself wondering what kind of music they will come up with for the next situation. Here is a classic case of using one’s strengths to maximum effect. Naz’s mother (MD Pallavi) has a wonderful singing voice and, while there is no real need to, she treats us to her full-throated rendition of Kesariya Balama. Truly the stuff of gooseflesh.

Two actors play Naz, one as the narrator (David Benito Garcia), the other as the actual boy (Shrunga BV). The narrator is the stronger performer of the two and tides over the more tricky bits in Naz’s role.

The closing note is positive and realistic. The story arc with Krysia, which seemed fated for an abrupt end, is also reconciled on the same note. Naz’s climactic letter to his parents is more honest, more gutsy than the one his elder sibling wrote years ago. With such gains of the journey as courage and wisdom, the empty suitcase does seem worth regrets after all.

The play isn’t so much about this day as any other, or even about these specific people than any other. Rehaan, Karim and Karim’s Ammi might as well be Rahim, Kabir and Kabir’s Ammi. Their stories are generic enough to be replaceable by equally interesting stories of another cross-section from the immigrant population. Harlesden High Street isn’t about what makes people unique, it’s about what makes different people the same.

The play has a rather subdued beginning with a conversation between Rehaan and Karim outside their small corner shop. We soon learn that this is the only spot where normal exchange of words takes place -  elsewhere is poetic self-reflection. Interestingly, there is never a three-way conversation and few face-to-face exchanges between the characters – most of the play is in soliloquies. It is in these soliloquies that the play and its actors come into their element. The very talented cast (Arundhati Nag, Bikram Ghosh, Sandep Shikhar) get some lovely, funny and poignant lines to speak.

In the director Neel Chaudhuri’s words, the play tells us “stories of broken and fractured lives that endure”. Amidst that high purpose, the play doesn’t forget to linger on the lighter appeals of atmosphere – the crack of dawn, the bustle, the chill, the rumbling of buses and the falling of rain.

The most enduring thing about Harlesden High Street is its writing. The play is largely in free verse. The dialogues hinge on everyday objects, stuff like maps and mufflers, and slowly draw in deeper meanings. A lesser writer might compare rootlessness to the color grey; you marvel here at how the writer inverts such comparisons.

Playwright Abhishek Majumdar clearly has a thing for places – Rizwaan and Lucknow’76 come to mind. There are the other stamps of his presence too – moody lighting, rhythmic dialogue, and abstraction sometimes to the extent of incomprehensibility. If you’re like me, you’ll be in for some "what could that mean?" post-play dissection. Hands up all who understood the blowing air on glass scene?

Then again, it isn’t necessary to get all the details to understand the big picture. Just as it isn’t necessary to be familiar with Harlesden to know that feeling when someone asks "Where are you from?" and you don’t have a one-word answer.

Much of my Full Meals experience was like that. But let me begin at the beginning.

The deal is a series of six mini-plays, cushioned with short acts by a pair of actors in imaginative roles (dead superheroes to restaurant waiters to statues in a park!). The mini-plays stand by themselves without interlinks, only the actors get shared.

Most of the mini-plays start with a blast. The first, Love and Lightning, has the surefire hit formula of a Jab We Met – OTT bubbly female meets no-nonsense uninterested bloke and chatters her way into his heart. But while Jab We Met takes its time for the shift in the guy’s stance to be plausible, the airport guy does a volte-face before you can say Jack Robinson. Funny one-liners, great rhythm – but ultimately a bit of a let down.

Toll Free Professional has a most interesting premise – man in intimate conversation with an IVR. The best moment of Full Meals – the automated voice compressing the man’s lengthy monologue to a country’s name. I wish the IVR had built upon that line further; as it stands that is a throwaway without further context.

Reminiscent of Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth, Everybody Needs Help has “God” talking to a disbelieving psychiatrist. “God” slips in his identity so nonchalantly you don’t see it coming till a moment later. A brilliant touch, that. Here too, the act falters at its end – the beat at the last line is held on a shade too long.

I suspect that a lot of Full Meals might have been sharper and shinier on paper than on stage. In the Tom-and-Jerry-isque sequence with orchestra conductors, for example, the well-conceived segue between the theme tunes of Mohabbatein and the Old Spice advert felt tame in execution. It’s a new cast and well, you can see that it’s new. Exception for two superb actors here – Kalyani and Prashanth Nair. Prashanth Nair was such a ripping autowallah that if he stepped out of Alliance Française looking and talking like that, someone would surely have asked him  "Jayanagar barthira?".

The story of the reluctant soldier left me cold. I was reminded of how powerfully Hardy’s The Man He Killed captures the same dilemma. Why go far – Lt. Dharamvir from JP Dutta’s film Border does a more convincing job of it. Perhaps the serious tone of this act did not fit in with the light-heartedness of the rest of Full Meals, plus there simply wasn’t the time to tackle it effectively.

The crux is that there was too much going on. The two actors who came in between the mini-acts, funny as they were, didn’t act as connectors or narrators – they did independent stuff. In a sense there weren’t six short acts but double the number. Cricket and terrorism and telemarketing and immigrants in Bangalore and I wondered, how would it have been had Tahatto thought of fleshing out any one idea into a long play – Bangalore through the eyes of its auto-drivers? A full-length romcom about a mismatched couple at the airport? I might have preferred that, I think, to the touch-and-go style we got to see.

So this isn’t a Bangalore-style "full meals", more a buffet lunch at a multi-cuisine restaurant. I lade my plate, eat my fill and leave with the thought "The lasagna was great and so was the rasam. If only the two hadn’t run into each other."

Rangatantra, a theatre group of IT professionals, staged one of his most popular comedy plays Bandvaal illad Badaayi. This is the story about how Ahoblu, a lawyer who boasts of non-existent success in his practice and eventually becomes a victim of his false pride.

The introduction of the play was a first-of-a-kind for me as the presenter stood behind a podium and read out it out from a piece of paper instead of addressing the audience more informally. Considering that the play itself was written in a colloquial language with liberal dose of English words (to make it more realistic and easier for the audience), I was a bit amused at the usage a formal, flowery language here. In fact, when he used the word “nistantu” (which means “wireless” as I found out later) while asking us to switch off our mobile phones, I wondered if any of us in the audience understood it.

As the play unfolds, we will get to know why Ahoblu who is adept at convincing his non-paying clients and unsuspecting assistant (Junior, in lawyer’s parlance) to do his household chores, fails to convince the judges to rule in his favor in the courtroom, how his quick-witted wife manages the house, and why their son attends a Deaf and Dumb school even though he is not speech or hearing impaired.

Pavan seemed quite comfortable as the central character, Ahoblu. Given the fact that he was in the thick of action for the entire stretch of the play, he seemed very much in control and confident. Akhila, as his wife Vishaaloo, was good as a doting mother and powerful mistress of the house. However, her diction was very disappointingly textbook-ish. Rajshekar, in the role of Ahoblu and Vishaaloo’s son Mudmani was just awesome. His body language was a treat to watch. His comic timing and dialog delivery was sheer delight. Watch him when he says “thpaakumpamppu” or when he insists that Balu (Ahoblu’s assistant) write “Fur-fur baaNa” in Kannada and you will get your money’s worth of entertainment.

Among the supporting characters, Prashanth in the role of Parashuraama Pattar – a Kannada speaking Iyer, seeking the legal help of Ahoblu was impressive. His Tamilzed Kannada was flawless.

Overall, despite being an amateur group, I felt they did a commendable job in almost all departments. Eager to watch their next show.

Ratnan Prapancha is an attempt to portray the life of Kannada poet G.P.Rajaratnam (GPR) on stage by Kriyative Theatre. The lead actors, Laxmi Chandrashekar and Sundar, have been theatre artists for long and are household names in Karnataka because of their roles in several successful Kannada serials.

The first thing that caught my eye when I entered Ranga Shankara was the assortment of musical instruments on stage. I had read that songs would be part of the show and had imagined that it would be done in the usual way of playing songs in background. Seeing the instruments right there built a pleasant anticipation of a concert-cum-play. Having grown up listening to and singing GPR’s popular songs like Naayi Mari, Bannada tagadina tuttoori, Bhoomin tabbid mod iddange among others, I was glad to be a part of this musical tribute to the legendary poet.

Pancham Halebandi initiated the day’s proceedings by singing a popular G.P. Rajarathnam poem. He managed to wipe out my expectations of a fitting musical tribute by breaking up certain words and rushing through/repeating some lines/words. With all due respect to the “experimentation”, I still prefer Mysore Ananthswamy and Kalinga Rao versions of these verses.

Laxmi Chandrashekar began our journey into the poet’s life by briefly narrating the family background, and led us to the story of how Rajayyangar became G.P. Rajarathnam. This was enacted by Sundar, Sandhya, Sandeep, and Chandrakeerthi. While the act managed to have us in splits, it failed to convince me that this was really the reason for change. Did the poet get his new name just because he was using the word “ratnagalu” frequently?

Later, the incident from GPR’s life with his cancer-ridden first wife was showcased well by the lead pair. Sundar told us that GPR tried to commit suicide after his wife’s death but was saved by a well-wisher. GPR married again soon after this.

Moving on, the audience were shown the reasons behind drunkards being the central subject of GPR’s works, the composition of ubiquitous Bannada tagadina tuttoori (The child artists for this act were grossly over-aged) and his habit of publishing and selling his works on his own.

The “life history” part ended with an incident where GPR makes fun of his own death. The lead actors excelled throughout with good support from other artists, especially Ramakrishna Kannarpadi who donned various roles. The humor-laced dialogues combined with actors’ comic timing had the audience bursting out in laughter some times. The songs were added at appropriate junctures and supplemented the story.

After this, Pancham was back with his songs. I had not been able to relate to the first song because I was not familiar with the tune or the lyrics. However, as if to compensate for all the disappointment he had caused in me so far, he came up with soulful rendering of next (and last) song, one of my personal favourites, Neen nan hattig belkang idde.

Pancham’s songs was followed by the last performance of the day – GPR’s hilarious play Kambliseve. In this short act, Ramakrishna Kannarpadi in the role of a shrewd servant completely stole the show from the lead actors. I hope to see more of him.

Overall, it was an interesting choice of anecdotes and songs. I would have preferred a slightly better presentation, but it wasn’t a bad watch.