JOIN USMost Bangaloreans could relate to ‘What’s Up With Bangalore Women’, a play staged by Underdog Entertainment at the Alliance Francaise over the weekend. The tale of a Bangalore-boy who goes on a dating spree, the play showed the different female stereotypes that exist in Bangalore.
Venky, a techie from the City, is heart-broken after his girlfriend dumps him. His friend and roommate comes to his rescue and sets him on a date with Lavanya from Lavelle Road. A spoilt, rich girl, Lavanya is obsessed with herself and leads a high-maintenance life as Venky realises after spending excessively on the expensive dinner.
Tired of hearing Lavanya go on and on about her wealth and ambitions, his next search is for a girl who doesn’t talk much. So his friend sets him up with Sara from Kammanahalli, an Iranian who cannot speak English. A hilarious interplay of words follows and Venky realises that he wants someone more intelligent. The next date is Mahalaxmi from Malleswaram, who drinks only filter coffee and orders mirchi bondas for starters and Maggi noodles for the main course at an upmarket restaurant.
An IIT-ian clad in a salwar kameez, Mahalaxmi is more outgoing than Venky could ever imagine!
Up next is Isha from Indiranagar, who is in a hurry to move in with him and renovate his bachelor pad, as she wants to get over her ex-boyfriend. She has even thought of names for their children! Tired of all the disastrous dates, Venky decides to hook up with an old friend Rebecca, who is from Richmond Town and loves reciting verses from the Bible.
When that doesn’t work either, his late date is the feminist Divya, who jumps at him at every comment he makes accusing him to be narcissistic. Yet when the time comes to pay the bill, she flees!
The funny dialogues and expressions of all the actors kept the audience entertained. The young team also infused its love for poetry into the play with Venky describing each girl to the audience with a poem. Verses like ‘She loved you back, to stab you at the back’ and ‘Who keeps foundation on while running a marathon’ had everyone laughing. Songs like ‘Uptown Girl’, ‘Free Falling’, ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ and ‘Hot N Cold’ were sung to describe each girl.
“We feel that theatre is very pretentious and elitist in Bangalore. That’s why we wanted to come up with something original that was relatable,” said Shruti Raju, the writer and one of the founders of Underdog Entertainment. “We had earlier staged a play called ‘What’s Up With Indian Men?’
So this was a similar take on that except that it had the boys’ reaction,” she added. “We tried to capture the hybridised social milieu that we live in with the youth of today having high expectations. We wanted to present something that everyone could relate to. We have done plays on serious issues as well and aim to present a new brand of theatre infused with poetry, music and humour and sensitise the youth about issues affecting us,” she summed up.