Theatre is supposed to be a vehicle of the mind, keeping reality at bay, transporting you to another place and time. At What Will People Say?, a situational comedy performed by The Madras Players in association with Crea-Shakthi, the transportation was instantaneous. But it wasn’t to a run-down, overcrowded flat in Mumbai that my mind first went; it went back to college, bringing forth memories of fellow students putting themselves out there, entertaining the masses with wisecracks, quips and anecdotes that aren’t particularly earth-shattering but manage to have the audience in splits anyway.
This isn’t to say that the production was amateur — it was well rehearsed, nicely choreographed and performed with plenty of enthusiasm and joie de vivre. Directed and adapted from Francis Swann’s Out of the Frying Pan, by Vaishwath Shankar, the story revolves around six young actors living in Mumbai, who share an apartment, hoping to make it big in the city.
Their apartment is above that of an influential producer, Kamal Bose (played by T. M. Karthik), who they believe is about to cast a road company, and of course, they want to be part of it. One day, they get lucky; when he comes up to borrow some oil, they convince him to watch their play. However, there are other complications, including a nosy friend, an overprotective parent, a well-meaning but business-minded landlady and even a pair of cops. And to make it worse, the young people have to constantly worry about that age-old adage which is repeated all throughout the play, “What will people say?”
Most of the actors, with the exception of Kamal Bose and Francis D’Souza (Radhakrishnan Iyer), chose to stick to their real names. And what the actors essentially are offstage came through in their performance. Vaidhya M. Sundar’s buffoonery was natural and spontaneous and worked extremely well with the audience; the topless number could have been avoided, but that is a personal opinion. Shevaun playing the dumb blonde was stereotypical as was Namita’s gamine charm, but then again, stereotypes exist for a reason and to be fair, they played their parts well. Prasanna’s tight-lipped demeanour was endearing and Radhakrishnan’s voice was the only one which didn't need to be amplified by microphones. Karthik as the Bengali chef was rather good; his accent slipped a couple of times, but the bewilderment and constant lapsing into Bengali was well executed and raised plenty of laughs.
The script has obviously been adapted for an Indian audience as there were plenty of regional references and one-liners. However, the adaptation didn’t quite manage to capture the cultural underpinnings of the milieu in which it was set; let’s be honest, Bombay is not Broadway, and it would have made more sense for the six to be aspiring film actors rather than stage actors.
However, I liked the bathroom-sharing hassle, the Maggi references, the task list on the notice board; anyone who has stayed with roommates in a new city would have dealt with these things. Victor Paulraj’s sets were excellent, the lights decent enough, the music passable. Did it work? Undoubtedly, yes. The humour was unabashedly slapstick, fairly clean and it didn't require much effort to sit back and simply enjoy the show.
