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From Chicago to chicken curry
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Michael Muthu's customised play, "Division Street", is to be staged on November 13 and 14
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UNFORTUNATELY, INDIANISING a play is not as simple as adding Chettinad chicken curry to Italian pizza. You can't simply change the Macs to Munnaswamis and Sams to Subramaniams and expect locals to fall for it. After all, when you move a locale from Chicago to Chennai, you move from one set of accents, traditions and histories, to another drastically different set — of, yes, accents, traditions and histories.
Fortunately, Michael Muthu aka Mike, has customised Steve Tesich's "Division Street" for a Chennai audience. So, while the original play revolves around Chris, a burnt-out radical hankering for obscurity in Chicago, 1980, Mike's version features Krish, a burnt-out radical hankering for obscurity in Chennai, 2004.
Krish's story begins when he's spotted throwing up a "stuffed mutton ball curry" outside the "Bangla Bar and Grill" — an incident splashed across "The Hindu, AP and PTI.' His colourful and very-Punjabi landlady who was "doing the hanky and the panky" with the old man who lived there before Krish, waddles in next, followed by a host of equally flamboyant characters. For example, the temperamental Bangla chef who is determined to make Krish "make sorry and I mean make it quick," who, when he's not trying to salvage his rather-awful restaurant's reputation, moans about being a lonely widower. "Alone I lie in my waterbed like a shipwrecked sailor."
Judging by the daily rehearsals, watched over by Mike as he sips from his cheery coffee cup (it says, "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing"), the play's going to be a laugh riot. "We need to do more comedy in Chennai," says Mike explaining why Board Walkers has chosen a comedy, again. "I don't think anyone has time to be intense any more."
The play is to be staged on November 13 and 14, 7.30 p.m., at the Museum Theatre, Egmore. Tickets are available at Landmark, Odyssey, Fruit Shop on Greams Road and ProMusic.
SHONALI MUTHALALY
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