An evening of laughter

It was an evening filled with laughter and madness as a collection of 12 hilarious short stories was showcased.

This was a part of ‘First Rush’, a movement by Evam, initiated for people from all backgrounds to be a part of theatre. Sunil Vishnu K, co-founder of Evam said, “We wanted to create a platform for the people from the audience to perform. So we started a workshop where we trained them for 45 days and gave them all the benefits and put them in front of a real audience to perform. Most of these people have full-time jobs and acting is something they had wanted to do, hence we started this.”

The show started with ‘A Minute Passed’ where director Jimmy played the lead role — a madman who fantasises about Helen of Troy coming to him. This was followed by ‘So Tell Me About This Guy’ which had two women gossip about boyfriends. The humo­ur, brought out by the actors’ expressions and dialogues, ticked the funny bones of the audience.

In the third story ‘Argument Clinic,’ a girl goes to a clinic to buy a proper constructive argument but quarrels with the doctor for the silliest reasons. She does not get a ‘constructive argument’ but ends up with a silly disagreement instead. ‘Blood Donor’ is about a doctor who is preparing for a blood donation camp.

Stran­gely, things go for a toss when one man comes running to donate urine as he is bursting to relieve himself. ‘Creep’ is about a girl who ends up at a party alone and meets a creepy girl who makes up the worst stories and starts to narrates them. A dance performance by most of the cast members followed this.

This was followed by ‘Game Theory’ and ‘Silly Interview’. ‘Silly Interview’ is about a professional who conducts an interview for a management trainee. The poor interviewee is baffled at the questions asked and realises that the interview has nothing to do with management at all. This was one of the funniest performances on stage as the two actresses brought out the complexities of the situation and handled the comedy very well.

A smuggler, who comes under the scrutiny of an airport official with his huge bag, for­ms the plot of ‘Smuggler’. Ev­en­­tually, he admits to his cri­me. Ironically, the official ref­u­ses to believe him.The fact that the smuggler could not convince the official had the audience cheering and laughing.

‘Buying a Bed’ was a hilarious performance where a couple go to buy a mattress but meet two crazy saleswomen who exaggerate prices and refer to a mattress as a ‘dog kennel’. This was followed by ‘Drive Angry’ and the last performance, ‘English Made Simple’ which shows hilarious conversation styles between two people. Samagyna, an analyst said, “I have seen the first batch’s production as well and it was really good. This batch has also done quite well. It is commendable that most of these people have full-time jobs and they have worked so hard to put up this play.”

The humour of the evening is what made the audience the happiest. Hema, an engineer said, “I liked the way they acted and they brought out the humour well.”