The next outing from the Aadyam stable is a bitter-sweet coming-of-age tale in which three young boys expediently decamp with their recently deceased best buddy’s ashes in order to inter them at a remote location that bears his name. In their eyes, that would be the perfect send-off for the dear departed soul, who had always longed to visit there when alive.
Published in 2008, Keith Gray’s novel, The Ostrich Boys , is a poignantly optimistic meditation on friendship and loyalty through the lens of an otherwise devastating bereavement. Adapted for the stage by playwright Carl Miller, it saw a Birmingham Young Rep production in 2011, before its professional debut at Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre in 2016. Coming right at the heels of its UK premiere is this Indian makeover, titled Anand Express , which will open this weekend. The play is a Rage Productions presentation helmed by Nadir Khan, and the Indian adaptation has been put in place by Akarsh Khurana, who has worked in close tandem with Miller. “The narrative structure and emotional graph is the same as that of the original, but it is now much more organically placed in an Indian context rather than just being retrofitted to it,” says Khan.
Khurana’s version, still mostly in English, features a liberal smattering of colloquialisms unique to the familiar Bandra locale to which the play has been translocated, and the characters all exhibit the local traits of personality identifiable with this milieu.
Theatre for millennials
Rage Productions have been closely associated with Miller, one of the driving forces behind the Royal Court Theatre’s Writer’s Bloc workshops, which have been a shot in the arm for Indian play writing over the last decade and a half. Miller’s adaptation of Gray’s novel seemed like a natural fit for their sensibilities, which lie in the realm of creating works that are both meaningful and accessible to ordinary audiences. As co-founder Rahul DaCunha puts it, “ Anand Express makes a most convincing case for getting millennials to the theatre, something we feel strongly about.”
Apart from the fascinating premise, Khan was drawn to the boundless enthusiasm of youth that permeates the piece, “It ignited memories of simpler times, in which we wore our hearts on our sleeves and were unmindful of the repercussions of our actions. Late adolescence brings in the gray areas of life, and it’s a scary time for young people that I really wanted to explore.” The play’s non-linear fragmented narrative marks a departure from Khan’s recent forays in theatre, like 12 Angry Jurors and The God of Carnage , both for Aadyam. These have been tried-and-tested affairs to which he brings a certain industriousness and finesse of execution, while working in a comfort-zone that possibly precludes the pushing of the proverbial envelope. “ Anand Express stood out for me because I would be working in a context far removed from what I usually do,” he says.
Talented quartet
While the four actors who perform the piece are assigned the principal parts of the four friends, they also double-up as every other character that they encounter on their eventful road trip from Maharashtra to Gujarat. This required spirited actors with a flair for deft shape-shifting, who would also be required to share a natural chemistry on stage, and conjure up a fair sense of the deeply abiding friendship that only the young exhibit. “We read with several actors, but ultimately the challenge was to find four performers who could work off each other’s energies,” says Khan. Chaitnya Sharma, Siddharth Kumar, Vivaan Shah and Sukant Goel were finally enlisted, playing characters drawn from across Bandra’s multi-cultural ethos.
Sharma, Kumar, Shah and Goel are actors given to livewire and diverting performances, and here they will also harness the gravitas of young people processing grief. In this version, the ashes of the deceased boy, Anand (played by Goel), will be transported to the milk capital of India, Anand in Gujarat. His lifelong dream to “be Anand in Anand” will be honoured by an intrepid trio of his friends. Goel, of course, has much more to do that what his onstage death announced at the very outset would have us believe.
Striking a balance
As the only director who has been a part of each season of the Aadyam initiative, Khan is certainly in the privileged position to reflect upon the endeavour’s chequered journey over three years. “What I have really clocked on to is that they are quite unambiguously committed to their plans of making Indian theatre accessible to all, and building audiences for quality stage entertainment,” he says. The myth that Indian theatre thrives on is its ability to make things happen out of virtually nothing, without even an arts subsidy regime in place or corporate backing of any kind. In attempting to dispel this notion, the Aditya Birla Group, under the aegis of Aadyam, has pledged infrastructural and logistical support to theatre groups in order for them to more expansively realise the vision they may have for their theatre projects. Khan says, “What I have noticed is that they are continually trying to find the right balance, and this year’s support for ‘black box’ works solidifies the notion that they are not just in it for big productions.”
Khan is referring to the first two productions of this year’s season, Danish Husain’s Guards at the Taj and Mohit Takalkar’s Gajab Kahani , that opened at the G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture, an intimate experimental venue in Mahalaxmi that is markedly different from the large prosceniums that have housed all other Aadyam plays. Certainly, this year’s offerings do not seem to be beset by a ‘money on display’ aesthetic or the trappings of ostentation that accompanied the venture’s fanfare opening. When asked about the financial sustainability of these measures, Khan offers, “I am convinced that their thoughts and plans are all targeted towards achieving the larger goals that they have in mind. The third year will only further solidify the proof of concept.”
Anand Express will be staged on June 24 (7.30 p.m.) and June 25 (4 p.m and 7.30 p.m at St. Andrews Auditorium, Bandra; and on July 22 and July 23 at Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point, more details on bookmyshow.com
(Photographs: By special arrangement)
