A cadaver on stage is usually horrifying; but this one will have you chuckling. And feeling pretty guilty about it. With characters that are naughty enough for Playboy and snarky enough for Punch , Ray Cooney’s 1990 farce Out of Order turns a number of narrative tropes on its head. It’s the kind of script that doesn’t give much scope for experimentation, but nevertheless needs an adventurous and playful cast to see it through. Director Nilu’s team fits right in.
The cast of 11 clearly has a blast with the script, breaking character only a rare once in a while to chuckle at someone else’s punchline. It’s commendable, considering the sheer number of straightfaced quips the script is laced with. Comic timing is key here, and every actor is adept at this. Keep an eye out for frazzled sidekick Yohan Chacko and opportunistic bell boy Prashanth Oliver. While Harish Kumar is a clear lesson in the art of physical comedy.
The scrape that the protagonist finds himself in is somewhat reminscent of Wodehouse. But in his response to said scrape, and in his off-the-cuff solutions with their tendency to put everyone else in a spot but him, he can give that iconic gentleman and exasperator-in-chief, Bertram Wooster, a run for his money. One key difference, though, is the absence of an omnipresent Jeeves to unscrape the scrapes and tie all loose ends together in a flawless Windsor knot.
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Cooney, in fact, doesn’t tie up a number of his ends, and leaves his hapless yet confident protagonists to fend for themselves.
This makes the entire situation much more nerve-wracking, almost too much so. With plot twist after plot twist after plot twist, the play eventually reaches a point where the only thing that can suprise the audience is a scene that’s free of one. But that would be uncharacteristic, as would the deliberate plot holes at the end, which just goes with the scrappy, chaotic nature of the entire enterprise.
It’s difficult to explain exactly what makes the play work, without giving out spoilers. And it’s nearly impossible to avoid spoilers in the first place. Suffice it to say the characters you will see on stage are equal parts stuffy, crass, doe-eyed, amoral, tragic, and over the top. S Radhakrishnan, Yohan Chacko, Roshan C Poncha, Balaji K Moorthy, Prashanth Oliver, Harish Kumar, Rohan Natarajan, Ameera D’Costa, Deepa Nambiar, Gayathri Pradeep and Nirupama Thomas, under the able direction of Nilu, give you an experience as fun and comfortable as a bedside copy of MAD Magazine at the end of a long day. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Out of Order will be staged at Museum Theatre, Egmore, from September 21 to 23 at 7.15 pm. Tickets are priced at ₹200, ₹300 and ₹500. For details, call 9381911977 or visit www.bookmyshow.com.