Citizen Reviews: Boiled beans on toast - A perfect amalgamation

August 24, 2014 07:11 pm | Updated April 21, 2016 04:59 am IST

Chennai, 23-08-2014 : A scene from the play ,Boiled beans on Toast, from the Hindu Metroplus theatre festival 2014 held in Chennai on Friday. Photo :S_R_Raghunathan

Chennai, 23-08-2014 : A scene from the play ,Boiled beans on Toast, from the Hindu Metroplus theatre festival 2014 held in Chennai on Friday. Photo :S_R_Raghunathan

I went to watch Boiled Beans on Toast with a lot of anticipation. I’m in awe of the talented Lilette Dubey and have great respect for one of the country’s finest playwrights Girish Karnad. The fact that it had such great artists, prompted me to watch this 105-minute-long play.

A brilliant portrayal of the lives of 21 characters intertwined with each another, the play focussed on several prominent issues such as urban migration, environmental damage, consumerist attitudes, and apathy towards the have-nots. Every actor gave a riveting performance. Just as boiled beans goes well with toast, the play was a perfect amalgamation of fine minds and brilliant performances.

Nithya Sashi

Besant Nagar

A toast to Bengaluru

A dyed-in--wool Banglorean, I looked forward to Girish Karnad’s play Boiled Beans on Toast . But this was a Bangalore that had long metamorphosed from simple origins to a humongous city pulsating with life, ambitions and everything else that metros characterise. It was a Bangalore that hardly existed in our days — a city legendary for its hospitality to a weary traveller. Karnad has used the legend of Bangalore as a background and juxtaposed the characters’s lives as they go through challenges and struggles, yet “give” in their own way to each other. But that straight-from-the-heart manner is conspicuous by its absence.  The maidservant’s wiles, the bored, elite housewife who turns to providing palliative care to cancer patients, the aspirant who is prepared to forego all as he chases his dreams, the son who has no qualms about spending his father’s money… all ring true of people not just in Bangalore but anywhere in the world. Blending humour and reality, Karnad drives his point home, even though all the sub-plots do not reach a denouement.

So are boiled beans on toast a good combination?

Yes and no. The same beans, now nurtured on fertilisers and yield enhancers, perhaps lose some of that pristine taste. But to young people, who have not been exposed to Nature’s pure bounty, perhaps the toast, although it has become soggy with the topping, is the right choice.

Geetha Iyengar

Alwarpet

Slice of Bengaluru life

Boiled Beans on Toast is set in a city that was named as a tribute to the hospitality a king received in the form of benda kaalu ( boiled beans in Kannada). Centuries later, Bendakalu-ooru has become Bengaluru - Bangalore and the hospitality, hopes and disappointments it offers its residents from diverse backgrounds forms the plot of this Girish-Karnad-Lilette Dubey play. It is a slice-of-life take on the intertwined lives of high-society rich wives, the lower middle-class with its urban dreams, temperamental maids, a rich kid who is a rebel, and a grandmother (who discovers divinity in a place as unlikely as a race course!), all of whom strive to better their daily life in the city. Sharp lines laced with wit and humour made the sombre subject buoyant, and evoked several laughs. With nine actors portraying 23 characters, each actor played more than one contrasting role impressively and effortlessly. Creative lighting and an artistic stage set-up made good use of space to depict varied vignettes at disparate places like a rich, urban home, a village home, a coffee shop; an IT company lobby and the city’s bylanes. The sub-plots were intentionally left with loose ends but it one had the vague feeling that these needed to be tied up at the end of the play.

Sindhuja S.

Chennai

Out in the big bad world

In the play, Girish Karnad intertwines urban and village life and places the maladies of migration in perspective. He depicts brilliantly the faceless crowd in which individuals and their aspirations melt into an amorphous non-caring urban society. The closing dialogue of Kunal (Maneesh Verma), representative of the youth, sums up the individualistic orientation of society and the responsibility of parents to guide their children, especially their sons.

The director (Lilette Dubey) portrays beautifully the aspirations of underprivileged migrants from villages and the rich, urban elite. On the present cultural milieu, the play stops short of stating the important role of the society, as a responsible and active one, rather than a passive, indifferent spectator. This is a play of ideas and dialogues fashioned in the style of Ibsen and Shaw, with minimalistic settings and actions on the stage.

The play is effective in bringing to the fore the travails of different sections of women. Anjana (Deepika Deshpande Amin), Mrs. Iyer (Avantika Akerkar), and Vimala stood out and played their parts creditably. Prabhakar (Joy Sengupta) expresses the plight of the middle class.

Chitra Raghunathan

RA Puram

That could be me!

Boiled Beans on Toast is one of those untainted urban portrayals of each of our lives in the thick soup of a timeless city. I was constantly nudging and laughing with friends and family thinking aloud, “Gosh, that looks like an episode from our lives.” Right from the pretentious Kitty Iyer flaunting her set of influential contacts (we’ve all done it), the seemingly-innocent maid who vanishes on a bad note one fine day (whom we’ve all had), the son who has to make exams and not music his first love (we know him don’t we?), to the spoiler among kith and kin who has an attention deficiency disorder (Yes. Yes. Yes.), at no point did the artistic cast fail to deliver the faded colours, the patchwork, the brighter side and the paint spills in our chaotic lives. What initially seemed like a typical drama from college, quickly evolved into a tapestry of thoughts, laughter and sighs. Director Lillete Dubey presented a commendable performance that entangled the strings of memories among us. Bangalorian or not, this was one dish I might order again…

Ekshikaa Sivanathan

Nandanam

The city on the stage

The lame pun in the title of Girish Karnad's latest play was notice enough that after dealing with civilisational contradictions ( Yayati, Hayavadana, Nagamandala ), historical mis-readings ( Tughlaq, The Dreams of Tipu Sultan ) and anxieties of the soul ( A Heap of Broken Images ), India's best contemporary playwright was, in his maturity, moving to lighter material. Boiled Beans on Toast has a disparate but connected set of people coping with the stresses and opportunities of India's 21st century urbanisation, which Karnad questions for its frequent obtuseness and cruelty. The city, as it often is in history, is shown as both hostile and welcoming. As you would expect of The Primetime Theatre Co.'s professionalism, the play was well-directed and competently acted. But it left a faint aftertaste of disappointment, as if Peter Shaffer had decided to do a little bit of Neil Simon.

Mano Daniel

Indiranagar

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