On these pages, we've talked about how children's theatre in Mumbai often panders to the juvenile taste rather than uplift it. We've complained about how the whoops of delight and the titters of glee that some productions seem to so easily garner, sometimes have little to do with quality. The collective joy is more an indication of how the plays seem to be increasingly playing it safe by serving up dollops of fun no more inventive than a clown's tried-and-tested routine. The bottom-line that children need to be involved with the show first and foremost is true enough, and we have had some children's plays, more recently, THE BOY WITH THE SUITCASE (an Indo-German collaboration) where content and form together are able to create good theatre for children.
With regards to children's theatre that attempts to push the envelope, Working Title's THE KACHRA TALES, written by Nayantara Roy and directed by Jaimini Pathak, is a recent example, but it still lacks impact, and misses the boat. The first show at Prithvi Theatre was impeded by an audience pared down significantly by the bandh. The evening's performance saw a fuller house, but the 'kids' in attendance were still left cold by the enterprise.
This was strange, because clearly much could have been done with the material at disposal. Much of the play borrows from nonsense writers like Edward Lear and Lewis Caroll, and it's hard to go wrong with such delightful literary nonsense at hand. Granted, the adventures of Alice are now almost a cliche with Bijon Mondal's QUIXOTIC WONDERLAND, also a part of Junoon's Arts in Play season for children. Keeping that aside, there remains a lucidity to the 'nonsense' in the original works, but that somehow in this play get transposed into a kind of obscure 'wordiness', rendering it inaccessible to its target audience. The on-stage choices sometimes underscores this conceit. For instance, the play begins with the actors in a huddle, their hands interwoven, as if they are literally tying themselves into knots, possibly alluding to the twisted tale that lies ahead. Somehow it only feels awkward and trite.
Sometimes set-pieces rife with comedic possibilities fall flat on their face. The play's central character is a sweeper boy, Kachra (Amol Parashar), who is infatuated with a screen diva (Ayesha Nair). When he and his intrepid partner-in-crime (a live-wire turn from Anshuman Jha) smuggle into her vanity van, they eavesdrop on her dealings with some sleazy industry-types. Not quite equipped to rescue his favorite star from the clutches of her evil handlers, Kachra beats a retreat, and as the scene seems to laid out, there is a thrilling escape to negotiate and much chaos. But it all boils down to more sound and fury signifying nothing. Later when they slip into a universe of sparser logic (through the looking glass or down the rabbit hole-take your pick), the real-life characters slip into their fairy-tale alter-egos with some relish. Here the actress is a princess betrothed to an evil prince who is, no surprises here, awfully fond of decapitating his subjects.
The prince is played by Romi Jaspal, so wonderfully child-like in TIME BOY, but lacking any perceptible edge here, he's not a patch on Kanak Khanna's full-throated turn as the Red Queen from last year's edition of Bijon Mondal's play. In this bizarre world, Kachra and his friend can finally rescue the damsel in distress, after a series of misadventures. On paper the script is unfettered, but the execution lacks verve. Everything becomes the spiraling means to a dismal end, and the absence of any real mirth is deafening.
Some of the actors strive to strike a balance with more full-bodied performances. Mr Parashar is a leading man with a Chaplinesque air about him, and Anand Ramprasad, although gangly as a schoolboy, later slips into an avatar of a bickering swan (it's an inventively performed character, possibly a stand-in for the Mad Hatter). As a doleful clown in distress, a hilarious Padma Damodaran perhaps snares more than her fair share of laughs. Trupti Khamkar brings in her usual bounce, but she's in danger of being typecast-reined in by a certain grammar of performance that doesn't quite do justice to her acting range. Maybe the lack of energy in the opening performance will be supplanted by the magical ingredient that could perhaps make future shows of THE KACHRA TALES more enjoyable.
*Vikram Phukan runs the theatre appreciation website, Stage Impressions- www.stageimpressions.com
