Eight solo acts woven as a powerful comment

Contemporary Narratives

Monologues are challenging to perform for a theatre artiste since the onus for the success or failure of the act and impressing the audience, is entirely on them.

At the opening ceremony of Rang (theatre festival by The Films and Theatre Society) Rage Productions attempted the same and presented not just one or two, but eight mono acts by eight playwrights delineating narratives from our contemporary social fabric.  

  Unfortunately, the name of the stories wasn’t announced before each performance in One on One. But this did not pose much of a problem for the audience to distinguish one performance from another. 

The group’s popular artiste Rajit Kapur took to the stage in the beginning and at the end to perform two productions - Kachre ki Hifazat and Dear Richard. While the former is a riveting story on the life of a Minister’s bodyguard (directed by Kapur himself), the latter is a hilarious account of a passenger who is upset with the food served during the flight. 

In a sombre manner, Kapur presented the abysmal conditions and hardships in the life of a bodyguard while critiquing the hypocrisy of politicians and the system at large. The delivery of dialogues in Punjabi is quite commendable as is the thespian’s flawless acting.

Though in the other performance, the genre and subject is in complete contrast, Kapur pulls off the act with equal ease. What adds the comic element is the use of pictures of food and the long descriptions of these pictures which mock the quality of food served in airlines. The satire reaches a different level due to the nonstop speech, which is nothing but a memorised reading of a letter that the character writes to the head of the airlines complemented by the actor’s immaculate facial expressions. 

Appreciation is order for the plays Job Interview enacted by Sohrab Ardeshir and Creado, Constance performed by Shernaz Patel. The brilliant lights in the job interview of a Parsi man, help in defining not just his answers to the interviewer but also his fidgety state of mind. Even Shernaz Patel’s performance as a widow in the latter, trying to be happy in whatever life has handed her is a strong representation and moves the viewers emotionally. Her description of the love making scene with a visually impaired boy, younger than her, is delivered quite aesthetically.  
   While the above mentioned performances are comparable with international solo acts, the rest were either average or below expectation level.

The attempt to showcase a young couple’s life in the cosmopolitan city of Mumbai is good, but not unusual. The story Abodana is relatable with anyone who has migrated to a big city in search of work opportunities and better life, but ends up getting entangled in the run to meet the daily needs. Presented by two actors, this is one of the better plays due to its poetic dialogues.

Rest of the performances – Load Shedding, Hello Check and Keeda Saala are good attempts but fail to leave an impression. While the first is the tale of a lamppost narrated by an actor playing the part (while seated on a high ladder), the second is a regular comment on social butterflies and Page 3 wannabes. The third is the portrayal of the struggles of a junior artiste in the Indian film industry.

The remarkable link between all these performances is the stage design. Every artiste places the chair and other props used during their performance near a pole after the completion of their act. This action adds depth to the production as a whole and keeps the audience connected throughout.