Narenatplay

BY NARENDRA KUSNUR  Sweety On The Rocks/ Hindi play Director : Amogh Phadake Theatre company : TPot Productions Writer : Amogh Phadake Cast : Malikka Advani, Shashankk Vishnu Dutt, Susheel, Aryan Kashyap, Yash Mawani, Resham Shirvadhankar, Mahek Gupta, Vaishnav, Trushla Gupta  Rating : *** After a drunken night out, Abhishek and his friends Vicky and Shardul return to his place to continue the party. Strangely they see Abhishek's girlfriend Sweety sprawled on the floor, only to discover that her pulse is still. The basic concept of Amogh Phadake's Sweety On The Rocks is to provide a laugh riot. To a great extent it succeeds, specially as the interaction between the three lads is filled with cleverly-written dialogues. Spread over two acts an hour each, the play has enough twists and turns to keep you anticipating for more. However, the last half hour turns slapstick with the introduction of new characters. The main mystery is to find out how Sweety reached that state. Thi...

BY NARENDRA KUSNUR A Fish Ate My Cat/ English play Director : Yuki Ellias Theatre company : Dur Se Brothers Writer : Yuki Ellias   Cast : Yuki Ellias, Abhishek Saha, Mati Rajput, Kurien Joseph, Kunaal Sangtani, Petra Misquitta, Latoya Mistral Ferns-Advani Rating : ***** Some characters remain etched in one's mind, reminding you of someone you've known or heard of.Sarita Johnson, the protagonist of A Fish Ate My Cat , is one of them. She's a Bandra resident, in her 70s and living alone, with the maid Jayashree coming in a Virar fast to do her daily routine, cook surmai and gift her cheap lipstick she picked up on the way. When Sarita's son returns from Singapore, she greets him indifferently, saying, "I told remember having a son called Ajay", later needling him on why his father Isaac insisted on such a horrid name. Sarita, originally Shetty before marrying a Christian, has been played outstandingly by Yuki Ellias, an actor much younger than the character ...

BY NARENDRA KUSNUR  The Horse/ English play Director : Sunil Shanbhag  Produced by : Arpana/ Aadyam Theatre Written by : Julius Hay, with translation by Peter Hay Cast : Akash Khurana, Harssh A Singh, Neil Bhoopalam, Garima Yagnik, Rozzlin Pereira, Rajat Kaul, Deesh Mariwala, Radhika Sawhney  Rating : *** 1/2 ( Pictures taken from Aadyam's Instagram page) When one talks of Roman emperor Caligula (12-41 AD), one is reminded of the 1979 film with the brilliant Malcolm McDowell in the lead role. Much earlier, in the mid-1960s, Hungarian playwright Julius Hay had written The Horse , a play on him and Incitatus, believed to be his favourite horse. Theatre director Sunil Shanbhag had read The Horse in the 1980s, and always thought of staging it in India, after taking permission from Hay's son Peter, who translated it. It may have taken time but it's a perfect finale to Aadyam Theatre's Season 7. And who better than the outstanding Akash Khurana to play the narcissistic, e...

BY NARENDRA KUSNUR  One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest/ English play Directed by : Danesh AR Khambata Producers : INT Aditya Birla Centre For The Performing Arts and Silly Point Productions Writers ; Ken Kesey (novel), Dale Wasserman (for stage) Cast : Zafar Karachiwala, Anahita Uberoi, Sohrab Ardeshir, Joy Fernandes, Deven Khote, Sufiyan Junaid, Gillian Pinto, Digvijay Savant, Varun Narayan Rating: **** (This blogger saw the play at Tata Theatre, Nariman Point, on June 28. Details on more shows in Mumbai on social media of producers). When nobody's around, Chief Bromden has conversations with his dead 'Papa'. Otherwise, the Native American Indian spends all his time sweeping the floor, and those around him ignore him for being deaf and dumb. 'Chief', played by Joy Fernandes, is one of the inmates in the mental institution featured in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest , the play based on Ken Kesey's 1962 novel of the same name. He and his companions are unde...

  BY NARENDRA KUSNUR Mumbai Star/ dance musical play Director : Nadir Khan Producers : Aadyam Theatre, Devika Shahani, The Dragon Rose Project Writers : Akarsh Khurana, Arghya Lahiri  Cast : Avenav Mukherjee, Arushi Nigam, Rajit Kapur, Srishti Shrivastava Rating : ***** ( Pic taken by blogger) -- Dhol bajaa re, dhum dhum bajaa re Dhol bajaa re, dhum dhum bajaa re Behti yeh lehrein, dil ko pukaarein, Jhoom le naach le, masti mein gaa re Yes, the feet tapped, the fingers snapped, the hands clapped. For around 100 minutes, a short break in between, the audience at Bandra's St Andrew's Auditorium on May 24 and 25 was enchanted by a group of 15 dancers presenting a seamless flow of contemporary, jazz, hip-hop dance and Kathak. Mumbai Star , the dance musical, had arrived with a fresh script and two narrators. Produced by Devika Shahani, directed by Nadir Khan and choreographed by Avantika Bahl, it had earlier been showcased as a dance act as part of a festival organised by the Mi...

BY NARENDRA KUSNUR  Those Were The Days/ English play Directors : Vishaal Asrani & Sarosh Nanavaty Cast : Mithil Patel, Sarosh Nanavaty, Sahir Mehta, Shriya Rao, Vishaal Asrani  Theatre company : VAIPA Rating ; *** 1/2 ( The play was staged at the Royal Opera House, Mumbai, on May 11. Top  pic shows Shriya Rao and Sarosh Nanavaty)  Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end. Every time one hears those lines, made famous in Mary Hopkin's 1969 song, one is overcome by nostalgia. The same happened when it was rendered at the beginning of the play Those Were The Days . Directed by Vishaal Asrani and Sarosh Nanavaty, the play used evergreen oldies aa a motif for much of its duration, though some relatively new songs were featured in the second half. The songs were in fact used to connect the dots between the main story, which was themed around two people in love. Flashback to 1984. Aman (played by Sahir Mehta) is working at The Tavern, a bar in the byl...