The Shahs in Chennai

This weekend I saw 2 fabulous plays by the Theatre group - Motley. The first one was a play i had heard a lot about when I was in Bombay - "Ismat Aapa Ke Naam" and the other was "Dear Liar".
Ismat Aapa ke Naam, is a selection of 3 stories by the famous and controversial writer Ismat Chugtai. The way this was performed was not a run-of-the-mill dramatisation of a story (don't get me wrong... i love just regular plays too). These were staged in the form of stories told by a story-teller. Naseeruddin Shah described it perfectly at the start; It was like a mother telling a story to her children, wherein she is the narrator and also becomes every character. In IAKN, each story-teller played narrator and all the characters in the story.

The first story, performed by Heeba Shah, (Naseer's daughter - no he is not a bosom buddy, but its just shorter to type Naseer) was called Chhui Mui (nothing to do with the Preeti Jhangiani/Abbas song or with Daler). In Chhui Mui, Heeba went effortlessly from a nervous 16-year-old to the loud and impatient 70-yr-old mother of the house. She also skilfully played the part of another woman, who forced her way into the aforementioned characters' compartment in the train, braved the old lady's abuses, gave birth to a baby, mopped up the mess and jumped off the train with her baby, leaving her co-passengers flabbergasted and secretly impressed.

The next story, narrated by Ratna Pathak Shah was Mughal Bachcha. MB spoke briefly of the lost glory of the Mughal's, whose pride was ground into the dust by the British. The story revolved around the exceedingly beautiful and fair Gori Bi, and her marriage to Kale Miyan. Apart from suffering at the hands of the British, Kale Miyan had to endure taunts at his wedding about how he would taint his beautiful white-as-milk bride if he touched her. Ratna Pathak was a treat to watch as she played the coy Gori Bi as well as the loud and rude Kale Miyan with ease.

The performance of the evening came from Naseer, in Gharwali - the last story of the night. Gharwali was the story of Lajo, a maid-servant who was "generous with her affections" towards men and of Mirza, a prudish and hyprocitical storekeeper. Naseer delighted us all with his "bashi-bazouks, billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles" type dialogue delivery for Mirza and with the suggestive, free-spirited portrayal of Lajo. All in all, a fantastic evening!!

Last evening, i went for another play. To Ratna Pathak and Naseeruddin Shah's credit, it was the day after they had performed IAKN, and they did a bloody good job of this one too. "Dear Liar" was an enactment-cum-narration of the correspondence between George Bernard Shaw and a famous actress of his time, Beatrice Stella Campbell (The first actress to play Eliza Dolittle). Both actors gave the audience a stellar performance. Once or twice they fumbled with lines, recovering quite well. Considering they had done an Urdu play just the previous night, it was amazing to see them fit into their new characters with such ease. The play was about 2 hours long and it made one happy and sad for both characters. I find it a great pity that GBS and Stella didn't get married. Although, I do believe that it was this distance that made their relationship as exciting as it was.
If any of you ever get a chance to see these plays, don't miss it for the world.

As an afterthought..... I paid 350 rs. for balcony tickets. (Nosebleed ki mummy, as a friend of mine put it). Those were the cheapest tickets and the most expensive were 2500. I think its a shame to have to pay so much to watch a play, no matter who the actors, production company or what the venue is. (P.S. Prithvi rocks!!)