My best way to pass a leisurely Sunday evening is to catch a good play at the Prithvi theatre at JUHU. Invariably you will find a great play to watch and share with some like minded folks.
Last Sunday, I spent a rare evening with my 12 year old son, watching this humourous satire called BLACK with ’Equal’ It portrays the undelying communal ’dis’harmony prevalent in society today. We both thoroughly enjoyed lots of chuckles and guffaws at a brilliant interpretation of the goings on at a routine Cooperative Housing Society meeting which turns nasty with a murder and the communal angle that it veers to in a couple of weeks.
The director has termed it ’A Black comedy in 4 scenes’ Why label it black, didn’t make sense to me but maybe it had to do with the ’White’ at the end of it all. Nothing black about it except the ’black coffee with equal milk ’n’ sugar’.
A virtual who’s who forms the star cast.
Utkarsh Mazumdar as the simpleton Ramnik bhai plays the quintessential Gujrati ’Chairman’ of the society living with his ’bahu’ Maneesha (Loveleen Mishra of Hum Log ’chutki’ fame)
Mr.Chatterjee a rich spoilt Bengali is played by Satyajit Sharma.
Tom Alter (yes our evergreen filmi ’angrez’) plays a typical middle aged white beared, kirpan carrying Sardar Sukhbir Singh with aplomb and conviction.
Dinyar Tirandaz plays the bumbling foot in the mouth typical Parsi ’bava’ as Jamshed Hodivala.
Chandar Khanna enacts a very convincing ’Usman bhai’ and lends credo to a Pathani Kurta pyjama clad and round skull capped Muslim member.
Rachana Shah as the independent fire brand ’Jayati’ adds a touch of glamour.
Shreyas Pandit as ’Shanti bhai’ and his echoing ’Jai Shambhoo’ is very endearing as the typical polished goonda with a gun-toting dum body guard ’Bajrang’ enacted by Chirodeep Mitra.
Meenal Patel is a very convincing brash loud mouth ’Rashida Begum’ and is a riot with her riotous utterings.
’Saldanha’ (Uday Chandra) is the Catholic Secretary who lives a bachelor’s life and covets the neighbour’s wife.
The whole act is a sensitive replication of a normal routine typical Bombay ’society meeting’ going awry and touches the communal chord very effectively but leaves you pondering for a solution to the eternal communal divide.
The costume and make-up was very painstakingly detailed yet so subtle that barely noticeable.
The acting was of the highest calibre and brought out the subtle nuances to the fore without as much as a ripple yet causing a storm in a ’tea-cup’.
The play is for 120 minutes (2 hours) divided into Act 1 and Act 2 further subdivided into scene 1 and scene 2. It starts with the scheduled meeting in Ramnik bhai’s flat and continues in the same room a few hours later. Act 2 is again the same drawing room and another meeting one week later but the last scene is here again but three weeks later and how life has changed so much in so short a span. This play is one of my most highly enjoyed plays and I personally recomend it to all afficionados.
Regards
Raja (c)
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