Complex relations

Play on

As part of the Deccan Herald Theatre Festival, ‘Play Pen’ will stage ‘Marry Go Round’ at Chowdiah Memorial Hall on February 28 at 7.30 pm.

It is about arranged marriages, multi-cultural identities and the generation gap. Set in Hyderabad, it is about a determined mother using blatant emotional blackmail to inveigle her NRI son into a marriage with the right sort of desi girl; a reluctant groom with a live-in girlfriend following him all the way to India; a bride on the rebound from a disastrous liaison with a married man; skeletons rattling in old family cupboards; an aunt on the vengeance trail.

It is a heady cocktail of an arranged wedding that morphs into a love marriage with the wrong girl with a little tactical help from long-dead ancestors. ‘Marry Go Round’ is one quaint combination of today’s merrily irreverent humour and a staid Hyderabadi milieu with its Nawabi hangover from grandiose times long past. 

The play is directed by Ashish Sen and written by Sadiqa Peerbhoy. It will also be staged at Jagriti on March 5 and 6 at 7.30 pm and Ranga Shankara on March 10 at 7.30 pm. On February 26 and 27, ‘Centre for Film and Drama’ will stage ‘In Such a State’ at Jagriti at 7.30 pm. It is based on Dr UR Ananthamurthy’s novel ‘Avasthe’. 

Tickets are available at Deccan Herald, MG Road, between 10 am to 5 pm. For more information, call 25880147/ 25880141. Tickets are priced at Rs 500, Rs 300 and Rs 100 at Chowdiah Memorial Hall and Rs 300 at Ranga Shankara and Jagriti.