Bangalore hosted another round of plays from its darling ‘Motley Crew’ of Naseeruddin and Ratna Pathak Shah. As expected, all the front rows were choc a block full with the glitterati of city. It’s compulsory attendance considering that for two thousand bucks you get to patronize THE ARTS as well as dazzle your friends with your deep understanding of the symbolism of a play that’s considered the height of literary sophistication. That’s probably why half the audience could not make head or tail of the show but still gave a standing ovation!
I had waited weeks in anticipation of watching a live performance of WAITNG FOR GODOT as couldn’t read more than a few pages of the written version (alas can’t make any claims to being a literary genius). So the play is about a couple of tramps (played by Benjamin Gilani and …..a minor Bollywood actor) who are waiting for a guy named Godot and pass the time in tete a tete on a variety of topics (don’t ask what because I was trying to sleep through it). In all this waiting they come across a curiosity called Pozzo (an outlandish and outlandishly dressed NS) and his menial Lucky (Randeep Hooda…….??????). And did I say that Godot never arrives afterall?
Watching Naseeruddin Shah is always a pleasure, the guy JUST knows how to make an audience dance to his tune ala pied piper, EVERY TIME! Randeep Hooda was either there to show off his abs (and yummy they are) or is working his way through towards ‘meaningful roles’. Whatever, his 5 minutes of fame were enough for the ladies to be seduced by his sonorous voice and yummy BOD (did I already mention it? Tsk tsk). The rest of the cast was just fine.
The opening scene itself was a huge disappointment and things just went down hill from there. What I went to watch was Waiting for Godot but somehow different from maybe what a college performance would be like (western wardrobe, English and just no adaptation). It just felt like the director went to Broadway, came back to simply recreate whatever he saw (not taking away from the brilliant performances). My husband says I’m turning my nose up at the play because I didn’t understand it and I accept that there is a possibility of that.
Five minutes into the play, the audience became restless and me hungry. The fun however began just then. As the audiences’ attention started to wander and the novelty of seeing Nasser play Pozzo decked up like captain Jack Sparrow wore off, a lady strolled onto the stage and for a few seconds every one waited with bated breath at the sudden twist in the classic well known story that has 5 actors and definitely no woman!
As the audience and the actors gawked for a few seconds, unsure of what is happening, the lady simply informed a packed hall and a famously grouchy Naseer that she had had enough and would the kindly souls among the audience please remove their cars from in front of her garage so that she could go places……literally. This is what great shows are made of????
Ofcourse as expected, Naseer recovered enough to state in his trademark barely controlled anger that he’d had enough and this was not the way to perform a classic play. Pandemonium broke loose and some of the tortured audience seized the moment to purposefully walk to the exits in search of much needed caffeine or slink away from the whole thing altogether….. ‘most significant English-language play of the 20th century’ or not! My husband says that it’s a relief that the interruption did not come from gun toting terrorists, we were indeed a soft target at that moment. Well after all this excitement, the players returned and the show went on (even cleverly weaving the incident into the play) and promptly received rapturous applause from an audience.
Naseer though got the ultimate revenge when even more characteristically he openly apologized to the audience for his crass behaviour (‘I consider theatre to be the most sacred of art forms’!) and true to the tradition of satire in theatre gave a resounding answer to the lady in question by saying ‘That young lady was quite daring, to come up on stage before a packed house. Perhaps she wishes to be an actor, and could we all give her a round of applause?’
Well the play ended after a lengthy 180 minutes and I dashed towards to exit….not even waiting for ther husband to join me. Waiting For Godot was one tedious task!
