Theatre Review: One Small Day
Amit Das
10 April 2007, 12:20
I happened to catch a performance of One Small Day at NCPA. Not quite sure if it follows the mood of watching an idyllic sunset at Marine Drive with special someones, but the play was good in some parts, and average in some.
Backdrops: First – Directed by Jayant Kripalani, Produced by Anish Trivedi, and enacted by Dipika Roy and Anish Trivedi himself, the play traces the interaction between two very different, yet similar people, caught in a room together where the lady has come to kill the gentleman (in a self-redeeming effort of avenging her sister’s death).
Second, about the cast and the people. Jayant is known for his wit, timing and acting, right from his early days on the TV Series – Khandaan. Truly a man of great theatrical skills, Jayant lends his credibility and touch to this play. Anish, an ex-Investment Banker turned playwright, with his previous play Still Single going off the streets after an year of performances, started the Banyan Tree production company, and has a radio show on 92.5FM.
Banyan Tree is one of the largest radio programming companies in India. Theatre, has been a recent foray for Anish and Banyan Tree. And for encouragement, the previous show (Still Single) did win him some mixed press. Dipika Roy has also been around in the theatre circuits for quite some time and has a list of impressive plays to her credit. Anish’s partner at Banyan Tree, she is Anish’s muse for sure given her role in Still Single as well as One Small Day.
Trivia: In the initial running of the play, Jayant was acting and Anish was directing. But for some reason, within a month or so, the roles were reversed.
Back to the play, which apparently is an inspired from another prodcution. The original required people to take sides, define things as right or wrong, while Anish and Jayant’s effort is more on the humorous side. It doesn’t make for an intellectually challenging play, playing so heavily on the humerous and sarcastic elements for two hours.
The action starts with Sheila (Dipika) barging into Bollywood Producer Hari Kapoor’s (Anish) office threatening to kill him. His crime – Sheila’s sister Seema has committed suicide, after Hari failed to live up to his promise of casting her in a role. A heartbroken Seema ends up taking her life, but not before telling her sister why she is doing it. Having had a troubled childhood (after losing her mother at the age of 18, and father at the age of 22, Sheila raises her 14 year old sister all by herself. She has lived her life by the social norms of right and wrong, doing all the right things and sacrificing her “life” in return.
She blames Hari for having lost the most important person in her life- Seema. Hari, over the course of a long conversation, which fairly wittily tries to address the question of different personalities, insecurities, actions, motives, reality, people, emotions, individuality, sacrifices, choices, careers, and most importantly, the futility of it all, ends up liking Sheila, and making out with her (not on the stage, of course! Indian audiences are not ready for that real a play as of yet!). Sheila, however, having been pulled out of her shackles in the first half of the play, digs out Hari’s insecurities in the second half, and does end up shooting him (not fatally, though) towards the end.
The play continues to hit upon the broken dreams and failed aspirations of each of the characters (Sheila, Sushma and Hari) and the roles they played in making them the kind of people they were. And the undertone used is –humor and sarcasm. The play is quite funny, with its wisecracks. However, the essence of a powerful script is that the audience should carry the play with them when they move out of the theatre. That does not happen here!
Background score used in the play is quite involved and in sync with the theme. The stage handling is very apt, and so is the use of the stage. The two actors have played their parts well. However, some of the estrangement and grief that two torn lives should have was missing in their performance.
Overall- a good effort. Can definitely be watched. Much better than spending a weekend on movies like “Just Married” or “HatTrick”
Comment
Theatre Watch: Karode Mein Ek "Theatre Review: Katha Collage - II "
Well, I happened to catch ONE SMALL DAY, at the Bandra Auditorium and I must say the above review is being very kind to this play. I wonder why? Is it because it’s an Anish Trivedi play and people who watch these things know no better?
Truly it was very amateurish! Everything from the sound cues to the acting was like how Hari Kapoor would blatantly say “Shit”
It was appalling! There were times when the script was so bad it made you shriek in your seat.
Lines like “is your mother a virgin too” ??????
Dipika like in ‘Still Standing’ was once again monotonous. If I were a musician I could put a beat to the way she delivers her lines. Back and forth they go at each other like a ping pong game, scripted to the core. So scripted that if one forgot their line the other would just stand there and wait for it, like it’s “your turn come on pass the ball”. And they did forget their lines, both of them.
Anish wrote this play himself. He needs to get some professional help. He tries so hard to put the humor in it and comes up with these really cheesy lines that send middle aged ladies into a giggling frenzy and I guess for him its mission accomplished. Gosh I which I had the lines with me but I don’t. If I had a copy of that script I could underline the lines where all the aunties in the room would burst into giggles half mortified yet naughtily proud to find them funny. I just rolled and rolled my eyes.
Now this next bit is for the director! You did a horrible job. But I don’t blame you. I really can’t see someone directing someone like Anish Trivedi or Dipika Roy. I guess you would be too humbled to give them any advice. But you should have! They are just the actors. The very fact that you just sat there while they performed and said nothing to them about their performance is a shame.
After the so called love making, bonking session that apparently happened Hari Kapoor looked like he didn’t do anything. The set looked the same nothing was disturbed. Where did this Bonking session happen? The sofa? The floor? I think the only place it could have happened was probably the bathroom. Did Hari Kapoor do it with all his clothes on including his shoes? It was so very unrealistic. I could understand if it was just a bonk, then perhaps Hari Kapoor did have all his clothes on but the actors said it themselves “they made love”!
Fur carpets in an office? Slippery fur carpets in an office? Get real guys. So scripted are the actors that when Hari Kapoor almost slipped on one of the fur carpets he had nothing to say. I was just hoping one of them would slip again much harder the second time forcing them to put in a little improvisation.
Overall a script that made aunties laugh, actors playing ping pong with their lines, sound cues that appeared from no where, sometimes completely irrelevant to the story, a director who slept during rehearsals because he missed all this makes ONE SMALL DAY and like how Hari Kappor would say “what the shit” does that mean”? Short day, Rainy day, Quiet Day! Small Day Whatever is a Small Day?
— Rohan A. Fernandes · Apr 23, 14:31 · #
Rohan,
If I were you, I would probably not get soooo angry! Everyone has a right to be creative and expressive in their own way.
Agree – Anish Trivedi is a P3 theatre guy.
But at the same time, all of us are entitled to our opinions. The group that I watched with had mixed opinions too. Some of them hated it, some found it average, some found it watchable! Some found Hari Kapoor too loud, and some, fit for the role of a frustrated loud mouthed!
But at least in my case, nobody forgot the lines. And to be honest, I am not able to identify with your reaction to dialogues. It seemed far smoother in my case. Maybe, I saw a later version. And Maybe, the director did take someone’s happiness!
— Amit · Apr 27, 01:49 · #