Seeing Sartak Majumdar (Couldn't resist the pun. Sorry. Really.)

 

So, a couple of days back, I found out that Stray Factory was presenting another play for Chennai, Beeing Sartak Majumdar, teaming up with The Mannequins. I'd been to another of Stray factory's plays, Gerome Bixby's Man From Earth, and had relished the experience. Thus, without much delay, and confirming a friend's availability, I blocked two tickets for Saturday afternoon.

Saturday came, and so did the heat. I mean, it was just 9:30 in the morning and the first sprays of water from the shower felt like it was located in hell.  "Bad day," I thought to myself. Also, I came to know that my friend wouldn't be able to make it. Being there alone was going to be really weird; and me staying about ten kilometres from Alliance Francaise (the location of the performance) only added to the misery. I hoped to God that the play was worth the effort.

Thanks to Indiblogger, all bloggers from Chennai had access to free passes to the play. I became more Indian instantly, and availed mine. Waiting at the balcony for the play to start and with nothing to do, I counted the number of people there. The turnout was nothing like the previous play I'd been to. I reasoned with myself whether it was due to the afternoon heat or the play itself. I also played the look-around-and-have-strangers-stare-at-you game for a while. It ended when they opened the doors to the auditorium. Only three rows of seats got filled, partially. And then, with the gradual dimming of the lights, the play began.

(Multiple Spoilers Ahead.)

The act starts with three friends (seemingly) debating as to what television programme is on in front of them, referring to the audience. Taking digs at the audience during the 'how to be a statue game' was a really nice touch, I felt. Then the audience saw themselves become the feature of MaaaaaaaHaaaaaBHaaaaaaaaRaaaat (again, sorry) and its mime. At this point, the one in the middle, Sartak (the play's antihero) realizes that its the real world in front of them and hides behind a chair. Then, his friends follow. Then we see the play going into flashbacks divided as chronological scenes.

Scene one exposes the quintessential formation of an Indian family. A man and a woman are made to meet and wrap up their marriage within a few months, neither of them in any way interested in the concept. Following this, Sartak comes into the world, and wanders aimlessly, since neither parent has time for their kid. And so dawns the brilliant idea of getting a television so that the idiot box can look after the kid when they don't (which is always). The kid gets sucked into the oh-so-wonderful world of television. Now we realize that the friends shown at the start are just two facets of his imagination, two voices in his head. He experiences the joy and freedom of the characters in the television as his own. He gets addicted to it and sees himself as the actors on the other side of the screen. Thus starts the blurring of the line between imagination and reality.

Scene two shows what consequences follow, after such a blurring. Sartak thinks he's a superhero and tries to confront his father when he decides to cut off the cable connection. He tries different hand gestures similar to that of Spiderman's (one had only the middle fingers up, which was hilarious given the context) to take out his anger on his father. For this, he gets a tight slap. (remember those days much?) Now, out of the blue, he shoots his father, and is sentenced to life imprisonment. He gets into an asylum, though, after an insanity defence is invoked because Sartak says that the television made him do it. 

Now we come to Scene three. Sartak is in the asylum and the voices in his head are as strong as ever. Without any way out of the asylum except sanity, he starts reasoning with himself and gradually kills off the voices in his head, only to be denied the decision of him being sane. He bursts out in anger, following which he resigns himself and we see the voices taking over again. This circles back to the introductory scene where we'd seen the voices in full flow.

I confess I couldn't make head or tail of the play for the first five-ten minutes. Then, everything started to fall into place. You wouldn't realize the depths in the story as soon as it ends, though. Once you start thinking (if you are of that type) you'll realize that we are mouldable and what we surround ourselves with will eventually become part of us. Such is the human psyche. Don't stop there, though. Keep on thinking. God knows we require a lot of that nowadays.

The performances were peppy. The number of references to the 90s and its TV programmes were huge and this brought back lots of memories of me being syamantak chatterjee back then. Thankfully, my parents had the good sense of sending me straight to bed at 9:30 and cultivating a habit of reading stuff so that I don't become too Sartak-y. The co-ordination was spot on among the music, the jingles, the lights and the characters themselves. The scenes with Hallelujah and What a Wonderful World

felt really intense. I found some acts improbable though, like the one where Sartak shoots his father at the drop of a hat. That kind of a step requires one to be very very unreasonable. But yeah, it's improbable, not impossible. Voice #1, the leaner one, ( I think it was Hitesh, correct me if I'm wrong) had the chunk of the references and mimicry and seemed like a terrific impressionist. Last but not the least, humour in the play was pretty good. Except a few stale ones, the majority of one liners and sarcasm infused dialogues were pretty funny. I remember this particular joke where one of the voices called for a spotlight and when he didn't get one on him, he shrugged defiantly, "It's OK. I don't need one. I'm bright enough." All in all, a good concept and a fresh approach. Do go see it if you get the chance.

I hope I have been able to do justice to what these talented guys wanted to convey and not just been one among the "pretentious people; who don't understand jack of what's going on, but still have an expression of recognition on their faces." Hahaha! This was somewhere during the first phase of the performance and I felt like falling on the floor, laughing, when I heard this. It didn't happen though, since I didn't want to start that other game of this-is-my-stare-saying-you're-an-uncivilized-bastard.

Just remember, too much of anything is bad. Except my blog. And cheesecake.

Anyway, here's hoping to seeing these guys again, with a new project in the near future!