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Mouse trap
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Mouse and Positions # 2 was marred by amateur execution
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ACTION TIME Mouse played out the actor’s debate of loss of individuality and independence in role-playing
What happens when the alumni association of an elite boarding school and a theatre production house come together? The audience-members are from an expected circle, the laughter could not be more appropriately-timed, and everyone is simply delighted
to be part of this well-connected evening. First City Theatre Foundation Production and the Mayo Alumni Association of Southern India presented ‘Two Plays’ – “Mouse” and “Positions # 2” at Ranga Shankara, sponsored by Kingfisher Airlines.
Balls of paper strewn around, cane chairs placed along a doorway and bare cushions to resemble a backstage setting give way to the sound of a piano playing, which builds up to a pitch. The play is in still in the undeveloped stage of rehearsal. And then, in complete darkness, torchlight annoyingly pierces your eyes for the next five minutes. Director and playwright Neel Chaudhuri writes in the brochure, that, after five years of literary angst, he penned the two plays.
So there is the mouse who dare not step out of character and, his hyperactive, control-freak of a director played by Kriti Pant, who has a piercing accent switching between American and British in lightning speed. A hesitant voice apologises for light failures and hence the delay in commencing “Mouse”. The poor mouse, stuffed in his costume, plays the director’s puppet – which is interesting – because it plays out the actor’s debate of loss of individuality and independence in role-playing.
The mouse thus begins a frantic counter-reaction and rebels against his boss – jumping, thrashing around and rolling over on stage. There are points of comic release – with the absurd dancing of the mouse, which eases the high-pitched tension that has been mounting to a tizzy.
“Positions # 2” assumes a completely different setting – all at different parts of the house. “A collection of six short stories”, the different short sketches all had a common, running thread. The positions that the characters take at the beginning and end are the same. “Sleepers Awake” saw a couple in slumber, roll around and mouth sweet nothings – a typical scene of a loving couple and their silly squabbles in bed, enacted in comfortable physical proximity.
Likewise, the next sketch “Winter Bliss” emitted some laughs at a man’s desperate attempts at keeping himself warm in winter, a couple’s heightened fight, and then aghast at the shivering man and hurt partner picking up noodles thrown on the floor during the fight, and eating it too.
The last four sketches also play out one couple or two in typical positing – husband making a move at the house-help, an inexperienced boy’s disastrous attempt in making the first move, a pair trying out a recipe, a bizarre look at a mentally-challenged boy’s life and finally, the burning, eternal question of whether ‘lovers’ should die a directorial Romeo and Juliet death or live the clichéd happily ever after fairytale.
The sounds were well-timed, costumes contemporary, there was also a smattering of Bengali, and the depth of audibility was inconsistent.
You wonder at the abysmal depths the group’s membership of the Shakespeare Society, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, has fallen into. After five years of the playwright’s quest for literary originality and credibility, “Mouse” and “Positions # 2” played out like a frivolous juvenile high-school production that can be dismissed with a polite, light pat on the back.
AYESHA MATTHAN
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