A liberal dose of comedy

Twisted tale

With a bunch of twisted characters, plenty of drug abuse, profanity, teenage angst and a liberal dose of fierce comedy, the play kept the audience on their toes throughout its two-hour-long duration. It boasted of a series of well-known names in its cast, including Lillete Dubey, Kitu Gidwani, Sandhya Mridul and Suchitra Pillai, to name a few.

Lillete Dubey, who was also responsible for adapting this American play to a more Indian setting, played one of the chief roles as Violet, the pill-popping matriarch of the
family.

When her husband, a confirmed alcoholic, disappears one day, all three of her daughters as well as her sister come to her house to comfort her, along with their respective boyfriends and husbands in tow.

Given the fact that most of the members of the family are on extremely bad terms with each other, the scene was immediately set for some violent confrontation.

Sandhya Mridul played the part of Barbara, Violet’s bossy and domineering daughter, who returns to Goa with her husband Ash and 15-year-old daughter Ginny.

Although Ash (aka Akshay Verma) and she are newly-separated, they are trying to hide this fact from her family. At the same time, they have their hands full with Ginny, who smokes like a chimney and pays no attention to anything either of her parents say.

Kitu Gidwani was extremely convincing as Mattie, Violet’s loud and obnoxious sister, who spends most of her time criticising her husband and son.

Marking a departure from her usual sultry roles, she took to the stage as a middle-aged, rather annoying lady, and had the audience stunned by her flawless performance.

Suchitra Pillai, on the other hand, played one of Violet’s other daughters, Ivy— a mousy, 47-year-old teacher, who is unmarried but carrying on a secret affair with her first cousin.

Despite portraying some extremely tragic situations — such as when Ivy found out that her lover was actually her half-brother, and Barbara’s husband walked out on her when she needed him the most — the play managed to remain witty and funny.

Both the personalities of each character as well as the impossible situations they find themselves in kept the audience in splits throughout. Rather than ending with a dramatic climax, it seemed to stop rather abruptly, with each family member leaving the house as suddenly as they entered it and leaving all the viewers extremely disturbed.