Bangalore is on high alert as ?The President Is Coming?. It is March 2006 and President Bush is coming to the country for a four-day visit. Six Indians are clamouring to be the one to represent the face of young India and they will stop at nothing to be the chosen one, to shake hands with Bush.
In his first visit to the country after a long break, the President wishes to meet the young faces who shape new India. Six Indians will do anything for their fifteen seconds of fame with Bush, and so follows a laughter riot of the cut throat games and the tongue-in-cheek humour.
Brought to us by Q Theatre Productions, Mumbai, the play has been directed by Kunaal Roy Kapoor and has been written by playwright Anuvab Pal. ?The President Is Coming? is a comment on the funny side of politics, reality television and the dog-eat-dog world of incessant competition. The play also deserves credit for the considerable bit of Bush bashing they do with a wit that bites.
The play was first staged as a part of the ?Writers' Bloc Festival? in 2006 in Mumbai and since travelled to Chennai, Hyderabad and Muscat. It was also made into a film in 2009, which starred Konkona Sen Sharma and Namit Das.
The play will be performed as part of the Metro Plus Theatre Festival, 2010 on December 3 at 7.30 p.m. at the Jnana Jyothi Convention Centre, Central College Campus.
All the President's men
Director of ?The President Is Coming? Kunaal Roy Kapur speaks to Metro Plus about his play and their show in the city for the upcoming The Hindu MetroPlus Theatre Fest.
What is the play about?
?The President Is Coming? is a play about six young Indians who represent young Indians vying to shake hands with Bush when he visited India in 2006. It is a farcical kind of space, and of course there is a lot of Bush bashing.
How did the idea for ?The President Is Coming? come about?
The idea first occurred to Anuvab Pal, the playwright when we were attending a workshop called Writers' Block. Anu had this crazy idea, and he spoke to me about it and we just decided to go ahead with it.
You have been touring for quite some time..
We have not had as many shows as we would have liked, we have had only about 40 shows. During the filming of the movie, which was for about nine months, we did not do many shows. We don't do anymore commercial runs in Mumbai though.
Difficulties?
There haven't been difficulties as such; it has been more a case of getting everyone together.
All the actors' careers have taken off in different directions since we came together initially, so getting us all together has been quite the task. The line-up however has stayed pretty much the same except for a few changes.
We now have Ira Dubey on board and I play one of the characters as well.
The play has been made into a film; does that affect the play in anyway?
Not really, I like to think that the people heard of ?The President Is Coming? as a play before they heard of it as a film. Although you cannot deny that maybe more people would have wanted to watch the play after the release of the film.
How different is the play and the film?
The play and the film are different in some ways and similar in a lot of ways.
For one the play is longer, also there are additional characters in the film and the ending is different in the film. So except for these few changes in the movie, for the most part it stays close to the play.
