For a Mumbaikar, it's a given that you will catch a crowded local back and forth between your suburban home and your office in South Mumbai. You will be jostled and tossed about by the hectic pace of urban existence and then left to cope with domestic demands. So what's new about it? Playwright Achyut Vaze's comeback play(Vaze returns to the stage after three decades), directed by Vijay Kenkre, and produced by Awishkar, gives a farcical and absurdist twist to this grinding, day-to-day situation in the lives of ordinary Mumbaikars.
Sadu is a 30-something office-goer in Mumbai who has recently shifted from his chawl in town to a self-contained one room, kitchen apartment in a far-flung suburb. While his wife is gung-ho over the lover's nest, Sadu is too exhausted with the daily commute to even sit straight when he gets back home. The local corrupt cop cons the new occupants of the flat to perform the auspicious Satyanarayan Pooja for which he supplies all the goods - from the Pooja material to the music system with the re-mixedbhajan(devotional songs) CDs. Sadu's reporter pal and his wife's gossiping, socialite friend pop in for comic relief. Sadu's bayko (wife) keeps breaking into archaic song-n-dance sequences from Hindi as well as Marathi films, and the device is a caricature of the Sangeet Natak tradition in Marathi theatre.
The turning point in the farcical narrative comes when one fine day Sadu decides he has had enough. He wants to break free. He stops going to work, and even undertakes a fast which soon catches the fancy of the media and the politicians, while Sadu waits all the time for a helicopter to whisk him away. When asked to give the viewers a message, Sadu declares, "Keep hanging in the local trains!" A succinct statement about a Mumbaikar's fate.
Director Vijay Kenkre takes his cue from the inherent farcical elements in the script and churns out a tight production. He has able actors in Pradnya Shastri (Sadu's wife) and Advait Dadarkar (Sadu). The common man act of Sadu wins over the viewers with his forthrightness and naivete. All praise for the actors - Sadu's role is played out endearingly by Dadarkar and Lokhande's friendly neighbourhood cop is also engaging.The set is sparse yet adequately designed to convey the circumstances; the lighting is interesting as it highlights the surreal elements such as the arrival of Sadu's much-awaited helicopter for salvation.
But apart from the few, truly comic moments, especially in the court-room scene at the end in which the judge questions Sadu, Vaze has weaved into his narrative an overtly familiar style of farce with obvious devices and stock characters- the corrupt yet jovial cop, the inquisitive yet empathizing friend of the wife, the jolly reporter pal (who also doubles as the narrator of the play), and the flippant and suffering wife. In his attempt to mock the struggling Maharastrains who are at the lower end of the economic spectrum, he comes across as patronizing too.
*Deepa Ranade is a film and theatre reviewer. She has been an entertainment journalist for over fifteen years.
