Theatre Alive!

Give me some sunshine, Give me some Rain,

Give me another chance, I wanna grow up once again!

This litany is stuck in my head after watching '3 Idiots' a couple of weeks back on the telly. Now, I know December is a month when arts and culture and theatre come alive in the cool winter evenings...but this time, for reasons as varied as work and dad's health, we have been either travelling or stuck in some very dull and boring situations! Yet, we managed to sneak some time out and go out twice in the first week of December to two very different but equally interesting plays! And the above ditty was the common theme in both too!

Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Caroll' where Scrooge understands and accepts the Christmas season with its inherent theme of giving and the joy of sharing performed as a musical by a theatre group from Chennai at the Good Shepherd Auditorium with 75 actors on stage was a garrulous musical where Scrooge ends up wishing he could have lived a better life if he had been more generous and charitable in words and deeds. Great show with some lovely SFX and super music, the play was a delight...yet, it was a pale shadow compared to the powerhouse performances by the living legend Naseeruddin Shah, his wife Ratna Pathak Shah and Heeba Shah. All three protagonists performed solo, a play, each based on the short stories by author Ismat Chugtai - a firebrand author way ahead of her time, a libertine free thinking woman who was branded 'loose' because she dared to depict sexuality in her plays. No wonder, I guess, a few decades ago - when you are a woman and a Muslim woman to boot and 'dare' to bare the seamier side of society influenced by the politically charged climates of the times! She defied the 'norms' of repressive society to air the moldy societal rules and give a voice to the unheard woman who is moulded, beaten into submission by these rules made by men to suit men. Coming to the three one act plays - they were all set in the pre - Independence era when the Mughal influence was dominant in the Muslim household in North India. Heavy stories which were tear jerkers, you would think - but, no! Each play depicted a strong woman character from a Nawab's wife, to an acerbic tongued 'maid on the make' who left no stone unturned to use their wiles to turn the circumstances in their favor, in a humorous tongue-in-cheek manner.

Each character was delightfully detailed, fleshed out just enough in very plausible circumstances where a childless woman outwits her husband by having a fling, fed up with his taunting, or the wanton maid who is not above using her youthful charms to seduce a middle aged Nawab and captivate him with a simple statement such as 'Why would you want to go looking for things in the outside bazaar when it is available at home - sastha, mazboot or tikaau!?' or a lady who refuses to bend to her husband's wishes as he has not wooed her as was her wont! Each character despairs at some time or the other that if given another chance she would live her life totally differently or in exactly the same way but would do a few things differently.

Beautifully textured and mulit layered plays, throbbing with life thanks to the superb acting skills of the the three actors, whose dialogue delivery and expressions gave the word articulate a whole new meaning. The three plays had simple sets yet the performances lifted them from the realm of good to great, effortlessly or so it seemed! "Ismat Apa ke Naam' - a tribute to my sister Ismat - was an evening to remember.

The 1 hour 15min passed by in a flash, and the auditorium packed to the rafters were left asking for more, just 3 actors left us spellbound with their mastery of their craft. I for one, have always been a fan of the so-called arthouse cinema, agreed some are pretentious and pseudo intellectual but still there are enough to give the grey cells a work out and Naseer of course is the original Thespian whose acting has a poignancy which hits you in the guts. So, it was firmly decided that any such plays which feature artistes of such high calibre shall not be missed.

Next in the pipeline - Alfred Hitchcock's 39 Steps - ooh! I love winter and all that it has to offer!