What would you associate with Rajat Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Konkana Sensharma, Munish Bharadwaj, Sheeba Chadha and Ranvir Shorey when they come together for a performance? My expectation swung between the extremes of an outright comedy and the acute seriousness of contemporary threatre. What spanned out in those seventy five minutes caught me by surprise and brought tears to my eyes. Tears of sorrow and some of joy.
The Blue Mug was personal theatre at its very best. It was a play based on memories in which the protagoist was the memory of the thespian on stage at each point in time. This seemingly abstract play was not that abstract after all. It did serve a purpose, it did make a point and it did make a memory. In fact many memories, some bitter some sweet. The play tickled and tantalized with characterised ease. It made you feel different emotions at the same time.
Munish Bharadwaj was jesting that he had to visit the crematorium very often as people in his family kept dying often. His brother and he were the most sought after people during the days when someone had died because they had unprecedented knowlwdge on the rituals. " My brother had gone to buy wood for the pyre and gave Rs 800 for wood costing Rs 740. The wood wala said Sir change nahi hai to which my brother said koi nahi bhai sahab agli baar adjust kurlengay. Humara yaha aana jana luga rehta hai. My brother died five years ago". The lights began to dim thereafter and melancholic music played in the background. I could not help but feel the chill when at one moment I was delirious with laughter and at the next I was pained at the loss of life.
The riots of 1984 played before my eyes when Sheeba Chadha paced the stage with anxious steps and shuddery narration. "My father walked up and down the room and bricks kept piling on the roof. My father was not wearing his turban that day and that annoyed me. He looked like a distraught mad man and bricks kept piling on the roof. If someone had to come let them come now." There is a scream and the lights dim.
Ranvir Shorey plays a middle aged man whose world seems to have been stuck in 1983. His accent is pulsated with an overt Punjabi twang. Recent memories evade him. He recalls his childhood with ease but has difficulty remembering events that have transpired a quarter of an hour ago. His melancholic melodrama is imbued with the colour of raw humour. He inspires a feeling of overwhemling compassion. Konkana Sensharma plays his doctor. She graples with is condition and is unable to come up with a cure or remedy for his situation.
Rajat Kapoor guides the audience in to past and brings out pieces of our childhoods. The joint family festivities and the slumber on the terrace sprinkled with water on a hot summer night evoke a sense of nostalgia. His monologue is dotted with subtle humour and has gory mix of tragedy. "My brother called me at 10 in the morning. I knew something was wrong becasue my brother never called me during the day. He said that our father was sick. But my father had been sick for the last eight years. My dad woke up in the middle of the night and said that there was a man on the ceiling. The next day he could not recognize anyone. I went to see my father and he did not recognize me. We got used to living with him in that state. I came back. One day the phone rang, agian, at 5:30 in the morning.
The exuberance of Vinay Pathak was very well captured in his performance. He loved going to the circus and enjoyed the whole atmosphere until one day a clown spat on him through his eyes. "I loved going to the circus. I loved the smell of circus, basically animal crap. I enjoyed everybit of it. Then one day a clown pointed his finger at me and came close, very close and spat on me through his eyes. I was very scacred. Everyone was laughing at me, I had no place to hide and no place to run. That bloddy clown ruined it for me. I had nightmares of the incident. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat and my mother would ask me kya hua beta. What could I tell her. Kya bolta- Ma mujhe joker k sapne aate hai"? The light dims and music plays in the background.
Memories flowed by like the sands of time, changing by the ticking hands of a clock ever so fresh and then decaying in a split second making space for another. The play made me laugh and it made me weep running by me the countless memories of my life. I was left craving for an encore. In a span of those seventy five minutes I had relived my life. How I wish I can relive it some other day too.
*The quotes may not be exact but they capture the spirit of what was being protrayed by the thespian on stage.
Munish Bharadwaj was jesting that he had to visit the crematorium very often as people in his family kept dying often. His brother and he were the most sought after people during the days when someone had died because they had unprecedented knowlwdge on the rituals. " My brother had gone to buy wood for the pyre and gave Rs 800 for wood costing Rs 740. The wood wala said Sir change nahi hai to which my brother said koi nahi bhai sahab agli baar adjust kurlengay. Humara yaha aana jana luga rehta hai. My brother died five years ago". The lights began to dim thereafter and melancholic music played in the background. I could not help but feel the chill when at one moment I was delirious with laughter and at the next I was pained at the loss of life.
The riots of 1984 played before my eyes when Sheeba Chadha paced the stage with anxious steps and shuddery narration. "My father walked up and down the room and bricks kept piling on the roof. My father was not wearing his turban that day and that annoyed me. He looked like a distraught mad man and bricks kept piling on the roof. If someone had to come let them come now." There is a scream and the lights dim.
Ranvir Shorey plays a middle aged man whose world seems to have been stuck in 1983. His accent is pulsated with an overt Punjabi twang. Recent memories evade him. He recalls his childhood with ease but has difficulty remembering events that have transpired a quarter of an hour ago. His melancholic melodrama is imbued with the colour of raw humour. He inspires a feeling of overwhemling compassion. Konkana Sensharma plays his doctor. She graples with is condition and is unable to come up with a cure or remedy for his situation.
Rajat Kapoor guides the audience in to past and brings out pieces of our childhoods. The joint family festivities and the slumber on the terrace sprinkled with water on a hot summer night evoke a sense of nostalgia. His monologue is dotted with subtle humour and has gory mix of tragedy. "My brother called me at 10 in the morning. I knew something was wrong becasue my brother never called me during the day. He said that our father was sick. But my father had been sick for the last eight years. My dad woke up in the middle of the night and said that there was a man on the ceiling. The next day he could not recognize anyone. I went to see my father and he did not recognize me. We got used to living with him in that state. I came back. One day the phone rang, agian, at 5:30 in the morning.
The exuberance of Vinay Pathak was very well captured in his performance. He loved going to the circus and enjoyed the whole atmosphere until one day a clown spat on him through his eyes. "I loved going to the circus. I loved the smell of circus, basically animal crap. I enjoyed everybit of it. Then one day a clown pointed his finger at me and came close, very close and spat on me through his eyes. I was very scacred. Everyone was laughing at me, I had no place to hide and no place to run. That bloddy clown ruined it for me. I had nightmares of the incident. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat and my mother would ask me kya hua beta. What could I tell her. Kya bolta- Ma mujhe joker k sapne aate hai"? The light dims and music plays in the background.
Memories flowed by like the sands of time, changing by the ticking hands of a clock ever so fresh and then decaying in a split second making space for another. The play made me laugh and it made me weep running by me the countless memories of my life. I was left craving for an encore. In a span of those seventy five minutes I had relived my life. How I wish I can relive it some other day too.
*The quotes may not be exact but they capture the spirit of what was being protrayed by the thespian on stage.
