Directed by Akarsh Khurana of Akavarious Productions, A SPECIAL BOND, which premiered at the Prithvi Summertime 2007, is based on a collage of stories by the well-known writer, Ruskin Bond. But if you think that this staged adaptation is going to initiate you to go and explore the body of work by this Indian based, British writer you may just as well forget it. And if you didn�t know that these stories have been written by Ruskin Bond, you could quietly bury the production for its largely terrible performances and for its absolute inability to generate any kind of interest for the literary qualities that these stories may possess.
Despite the play starting off on a positive note in which Benjamin Gilani as narrator, introduces us to the writer, played by Aakash Khurana, it soon crumbles into a kind of a clich�d child�s entertainment that gets its jollies from innocuous sensory effects such as blackouts and screams. Apparently the blackouts are supposed to be part of the stories taken from collections such as �Ghost Trouble� and others, but they do not in any way enhance the stories themselves. In fact there is hardly an element in the production that makes these stories intelligible.
What you do get actually is a contemporary version that resembles an Indian child�s sitcom, much like the ones that the adults vacuously consume. It�s like taking children for granted, undermining their capacity to imagine, to think and to question. This aspect unfortunately is the bane of a lot of theatre that is done for children in India. Rarely does one come upon a children�s production that goes beyond treating children as capable of being thinking people, young as they may be.
And so A SPECIAL BOND, despite the pun in its title or on the play of the word �Bond� from James Bond in its introductory story, does not serve the very purpose of the title. Actor Aakash Khurana, who is one of the senior actors of the English stage, disappears soon after the first story while Benjamin Gilani, yet another seasoned senior actor, transforms into playing the grandfather. He along with Karan Makhija, who plays the monkey are unfortunately underused. Hidayat Sami�s multiple roles such as Sherlock Holmes and the chowkidar, who is a big wrestler, are somewhat a redeeming factor. Tolerable to say the least in the face of actors such as Adhir Bhat around whom the stories revolve.
Adhir Bhat plays Ranji, the child protagonist of these stories and if one were to go by his performance then Ranji is someone who can�t say a sentence, without squeaking in the most irritating fashion at the end of it. Touche with Trishla Patel�s Koki, who appears more of a stereotype of a child prone to fits than someone who is an ebullient young person, prone to mischief. Shivani Tankshale as aunt Ruby or Ananksha Das as aunt Shabnam don�t fare much better. Aunt Shabnam, by the way, when not being needlessly irritated or falling unconscious is busy dusting the house, including the background painted panels that are reflective of the calm, mountainous surroundings in which Bond�s stories are set. A set design that can alternatively be used as the walls of a house is indeed a novel idea! So much for the performances. The light design by Emmanuel Vattise and supported by Hidayat Sami is however pretty creative in its effort to project things like a railway track and the approach of a train.
Were not one familiar with the stories (as I was not), it is not quite possible to see the production as a collection or collage of stories. The play appears as one big story with a variety of episodes. The introductory story, which is based on Ruskin Bond�s meeting with Sherlock Holmes in England, appears more like a prelude to the play than as an independent story. That the stories in this adapted version cannot be easily recognized as separate is not a problem in itself. The greater danger lies in the adaptation not being able to convey anything worthwhile through these stories; in some cases select chapters, besides the obvious. In its attempt to contemporize these stories that are distinctly Indian, the play simply capitulates to gimmicky humour and pure sensation.
*The writer is Editor of this site, a theatre critic and an academic keenly interested in Theatre and Performance Studies.
