The Special Mention List: Part 1

Year-end lists are meant to come out around the new year, but this month does mark a year since lockdown restrictions were lifted in April 2022, after the second wave. That is as good a reason as any to take time out to acknowledge performances from plays that displayed the gumption to spearhead the return to theatres in an uncertain year. Our resident theatre analyst Vikram Phukan calls it the Special Mention List (which we will present in two parts consisting of 8 performers each), and he has been compiling these since 2012.

A disclaimer: There is an inadvertent Mumbai skew, and takes into consideration only fairly recent productions.

Vikram is a theatre practitioner, stage commentator, and artistic director of Theatre Jil Jil Ramāmani. With several plays to his credit as director and playwright, he has been faculty at the Drama School Mumbai and has written extensively on theatre. His articles, analysis and reviews of theatre in India have appeared in the Hindu, Mint Lounge, Forbes India and many other platforms.

And now that all this is out of the way, let’s dive in!

(in no particular order) The Special Mention List - Part 1 of 2!

Kapila Venu, Shaiva Koothu, The Poetry of Karaikal Ammaiyar

Language: Sanskrit, Malayalam | Director: Kapila Venu

Kapila Venu interprets the Poetry of Karaikal Ammaiyar (Photo Credit: G5A Foundation)

In selecting the poetry of the sixth-century saint Karaikkal Ammaiyar (one of only three women among 63 Nayanars) as the focus of a koodiyattam performance, Kapila Venu has already imbued into an ancient form a fresh radicalism and a contemporary allure. This is borne out in an artistically astute yet gritty and raw presentation. The recital seemingly adheres to a traditional idiom arguably seeped in patriarchal representation, but steadily extracts elemental passions and fervour that persuasively embody the privations (and triumphs) of a saint-poet in her own hearth. It’s a tryst with divinity that extracts its price, and Ms Venu wrestles with the dualities of emaciation and fortitude in her own body, ultimately allowing her character to touch the sheer abandon typical of her deity.

Sheena Khalid, Swallow

Language: English | Director: Arghya Lahiri

Sheena Khalid in Swallow (Photo Credit: G5A)

In Arghya Lahiri’s staging of Stef Smith’s Swallow, Sheena Khalid dispenses with her usual flair and comedic sleight of hand to deliver a quietly contemplative turn as Sam, an individual in the throes of gender transition. Through silences and non-verbalised behaviour, as binary markers of gender are alternately discarded and adopted, and through a gaze that is as much piercingly inward as it is gently outward, Ms Khalid leaves us with an abiding imprint of her character’s soul. In their trysts with the cesspool of modern dating, the actor equips Sam with a beguiling mix of hesitance and eagerness that neither undermines their struggle, nor does it cloud over the politics of passing and disclosure.

Atul Kumar, Taking Sides

Language: English | Director: Atul Kumar

Atul Kumar in Taking Sides (Photo Credit: The Company Theatre)

In his own directorial outing, Atul Kumar walks a precarious tightrope as real-life German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler in Ronald Harwood’s Taking Sides, a play that places us right in the middle of a post-WWII denazification drive. Kumar weaves in a crafty ambiguity into his uncontrived evocation of the maestro—a performance that, on the surface, attempts to exonerate Furtwängler of collusion with the erstwhile fascist regime despite being the de facto state conductor, while leaving the door open for complicity of some sort. Facing down a partisan inquisition at the hands of Sukant Goel’s swashbuckling tribunal officer, Mr Kumar cuts a figure of both moral double-dealing and irreproachable allure, allowing the play’s ostensible themes to play out with topical immediacy.

Mihaail Karachiwala, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

Language: English | Director: Bruce Guthrie

Mihaail Karachiwala in Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (Photo Credit: NCPA)

A good measure of precocious energy and innocent probing invested in his part as Sascha, the son of an incarcerated dissident in Soviet Russia, allows Mihaail Karachiwala to emerge as the conscience-keeper of Bruce Guthrie’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, a well-intentioned production of the Tom Stoppard and André Previn tour de force. Holding his own amidst seasoned players, Mr Karachiwala gamely shoulders his fair share of the play’s foreboding, while constantly calling out the absurdity of circumstances that can be quite plainly seen even by young Sascha. As a bonus, the debutant’s soaring singing voice evokes the proverbial canary in the coal mine to compelling effect.

Mallika Singh, Don Juan Comes Back from the War

Language: English | Director: Rehaan Engineer

Mallika Singh (right) with Arunoday Singh (Photo Credit: @__.banjaaran.__)

Standing out in an (almost) all-female ensemble of forty-odd actors, an inspired Mallika Singh makes the most of what could have simply been an extended cameo in Rehaan Engineer’s beguiling staging of Ödön von Horváth’s Don Juan Comes Back from the War. Her part as the female dandy Peter/Alice, originally an unsympathetic figure circa 1918, is gifted with a humanism that makes the character much more than a cardboard cutout. Playing opposite kindred spirit Maya Sarao, Ms Singh admirably balances the insouciance of a modern queer heroine negotiating social positions with the agency reserved for men, with the feisty angst of a misguidedly passionate woman scorned in love, allowing audiences to emotively access the play’s elusive but essential feminist soul.

Anoop Gupta, Upar Wala Kamra

Language: Hindi | Director: Anoop Gupta

Anoop Gupta in Upar Wala Kamra (Photo Credit: Anuj Chopra)

There is much to savour in Anoop Gupta’s intense and engaging work in the solo performance Upar Wala Kamra, a play he has written and directed. Playing a mature middle-class man dealing with the slow drip of losing a son to irrevocable mental illness, Mr Gupta relies on a bitter-sweet repertoire of observed behaviours and colloquial expressions, buffeted with robust experimental techniques that lend metaphorical heft to the piece. With a stoic demeanour, steadfast and still, he nonetheless illuminates the agitated cauldron of emotions in which his characters (both father and unseen son) churn. It’s an intimate and private excursion that’s never maudlin, and becomes a layered statement for the times.

Gagan Dev Riar, Baaghi Albeli

Language: Punjabi, Hindi | Director: Atul Kumar

Gagan Dev Riar in Baaghi Albeli (Photo Credit: Aadyam)

Headlining a madcap ensemble in Atul Kumar’s Baaghi Albeli, a Punjabified retread of Nick Whitby’s To Be or Not to Be is the in-form Gagan Dev Riar, who plays the endearingly narcissistic impresario of a theatre troupe reeling under the diktats of fascist occupying forces in a war-torn Indian city (standing in for occupied Warsaw in 1942). Mr Riar displays a hilarious felicity for punchlines, whether delivered with deadpan comic timing or while frequently chewing the scenery with the titular Shakespearean soliloquy from Hamlet. He delivers on the physical humour demanded by the script with aplomb and, while not belabouring the obvious political subtext, mounts a character with clear convictions likely to end up on the right side of history.

Saumya Jakhmola, Mahish

Language: Hindi | Director: Neel Sengupta

Saumya Jakhmola (left) with Dhwani Vij in Mahish (Photo Credit: Third Space Collective)

Neel Sengupta’s Mahish, an inspired Indian interpretation of Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, features a spirited ensemble that includes Saumya Jakhmola, portraying several characters that collectively illustrate a possible graph of indoctrination, from exposure to conformity to proselytisation. Demonstrating considerable range and boneless fluidity, Ms Jakhmola oscillates between flustered naiveté, paranoia, and dyed-in-the-wool zealotry, till finally she assumes the mantle of an agent provocateur, effectively bringing out the spineless insidiousness of such operatives. While good for laughs, she resists the temptation to spoof the archetypes at her disposal, and instead skilfully makes use of the elements of the absurd that made Ionesco’s play such a far-reaching influence.