Brimful of Edgy Laughter

Brimful of Edgy Laughter

What would you expect to get out of “an evening of monologues”? Some soul-searching, some sighs and the occasional laugh perhaps? If that’s what you go to watch Going Solo - 2 for, you’ll be terribly disappointed. Here the soul-searching is secondary. You’ll have to do that for yourself after you come out of the auditorium; the characters will jolt you to it. It’s not called Living on The Edge for nothing. Thankfully, you’ll not go back all psyched. The combination of humour and hysteria kind of balances out the evening.

Rahul da Cunha, Anahita Uberoi and Vikram Kapadia, who directed Going Solo - 1 a couple of years ago, decided to collaborate once again, this time around, with men. The ones in the first part were “sweet” insights into the worlds of a few women. They made you cry. For this one, “only men seemed incomplete. So we decided we’ll take characters from Mumbai men and women and try to give each of them a story or a situation. As we went along, we discovered that times have really changed and you hardly get to encounter content, peaceful people. We’re all edgy and temperamental,” da Cunhaexplains.

The characters in the play are exactly that. Right from the very dramatic opening Anahita Uberoi’s piece, Backlash, which has a well-dressed-young-urban-hysterical-and-all-the-rest woman make a rapist take off his clothes and have him cut off his penis at gun point the acts don’t let you rest. The opening could be something some Indian women may not even be able to stomach.

Uberoi’s women, adapted from the writings of Jane Martin, are quite exciting that way. In the director’s words, “What I liked about these characters are that they know who they are and they’re not ashamed of it. They may have their little quirks, but they’re okay with it. And that gives the writer the scope to make the pieces smart and interesting.” In Uberoi’s section, Miss Pune the story of the “short and ugly” girl from Pune and how her mother gave her “the beauty” with the help of an iron rod, has been played to perfection by Lovleen Mishra. So does the very disturbing Maya Titfer, played by Uberoi herself. Maya is an unemployed actress and she can best be described as a schizoid scary and so so funny.

Vikram Kapadia’s monologues take-offs from real life characters, are a delight. Be it Mrs Chatterjee (Seema Biswas), the pathos-filled portrayal of the Indian housewife, the very amusing Mr Lakrawala, the commuter and the common man, whose woes you can only react to by laughing and then cringing, the Bombay girl, who drinks beer after a fight with her poet boyfriend and who “rocks” till she speaks about her little regret.

“It’s all about coping with the stress and violence in and around you and then whether you cross that thin line between controlling yourself and losing control,” is the thought behind his characters, says Kapadia. “There’s a lot of me and my friends in them.”

Rahul da Cunha’s pieces have emerged out of empathy, more than anything else, he says. “You just have to observe people around you. I guess I have that knack. Even without experiencing it, you can go into the thick of an experience.” His pieces add the true Mumbaiiya twang to the evening. Younus Khan, thejunior artist, speaks the flawless Tapori lingo and regales with his megalomania about being the fourth Khan. Zafar Karachiwala, who plays the part and another in the section, is the show-stealer. With amazing energy and histrionics, he comes across as an actorin full.

So then, all these 12 characters are angry. They’re funny. They’recynical. They’re slightly rueful too. But what strikes the right chord is that they make the transitions between these and a dozen other emotions without warning or visible preparation. You never know where they’re coming from and where they’re going to end up in a scene. Their edginess become a kind of prophecy and they convince you that one’s insecurities aren’t half as lurid as the reality one could tumble into with a single false step. And while doing so, they boldly challenge our sympathy and most of them end up winning it.