Play review: Wedding Album

Pre-review fart

This play wasn’t shown in one of the regular auditoriums in Chennai. It was put up in Le Royal Meridian, a five start hotel in the city. There were three kinds of tickets with three different rates: 2k, 3k and 5k. Of course, I didn’t pay for it or for that matter no one paid for it. Yes, I watched it for free. How? Well you should have journalists as your friends and then you might as well get invited to such free parties.

I call it a party because, they offered free booze before the play and during the intermission and then free dinner after the play (free as in it came along with the pass/ticket). This kind of stuff is called supper play theatre (about which I read today in Week| web-link). And believe me, nothing can beat enjoying all this for free. I had no clue that this was how it was going to be till I actually entered the hall inside the hotel. Thankfully, I had put on a shirt yesterday (usually I am always running around in country clothes). But well, I guess I was the only guy in chappals there! 🙂 Being amidst all the richie rich fat asses sometimes does start getting uncomfortable. Free party and slight discomfort come as a package I guess.

Review

Nice acting. Most of the actors in this play were folks I had already seen on TV, like this dude from Shanti who had played Raj G J Singh, or this lady who I had seen as Saif’s girl friend in Dil Chahta Hai. The play has been written by Girish Karnad and was fast moving. Overall it was good, but I would have surely appreciated it more had it been staged in a normal auditorium. It was really difficult to see the actors on stage, with all those tables lying around. My neck started aching soon as I tried my best to keep my eyes focussed on the stage.

By the way, it was directed by Lilette Dubey, the actress who played Nasiruddin Shah’s wife in Monsoon Wedding (MW). Her daughter (who must be my age) was in yesterday’s play too and I guess even she did some role in MW.

So yeah, the play was good and enjoyable but I am not sure how many present there were there because of the play. I mean who pays so much money to watch a play even if its a good one? The whole event to me was like a social gathering of the rich, where few empty-pockets like me get a chance to cash. 🙂

PS: Play plot

It was a two hours long play mostly revolving around the marriage of a middle class educated girl. She is being fixed in a marriage with a US based guy of her own caste and is she is happy about it. Her elder sister too was married off to a NRI hubby and she is in home now to prepare for the marriage. Her bro who is working for this marriage is caught himself in a sub-plot as an elderly couple who are family friends with this family show up to lure him into marrying their daughter. The play is not much about the story but more about the kind of conversations people in a family have: between mom and married daughter, mom and unmarried daughter, two sisters, mom and baai, mom and dad, brother and mom and on and on. The marriage thing going around only provides a nice background for these conversations to keep going.