Amidst feasting and spending quality time with their near and dear ones, Parsi New Year celebrations are incomplete without watching a Parsi Gujarati play. Over the last few years on such occasions, Silly Point Productions, led by actor-writer-director Mehrzad Patel, has been steadily staging works penned by the much-loved playwright Adi Marzban. This year too, Patel continues the tradition with Matilda Noh Matildo which features Azmin Mistry, Pheroza Mody, Danesh Irani and Danesh Khambata. The Gujarati play, directed by Sam Kerawalla, revolves around twin sisters Moti and Maaki. One is a school principal akin to the terrorising Miss Trunchbul (a character from British novelist Road Dahl’s famous novel Matilda ) and the other is the exact opposite of her, who is always in her office. The play takes place in the principal’s office where the teachers and parents keep coming in and out but, nobody is quite sure which of the sisters they are dealing with, leading to inevitable chaos.
While the original was penned by Marzban, Patel has given it a contemporary twist by rewriting the script and co-directing it. The earlier story was about a school principal who has a twin sister and featured the same actor playing both the roles. In its new avatar, the protagonist plays six different characters. Also, the script takes a dig at the current education system which doesn’t allow schools to fail students till class eight irrespective of their performance in exams. The drama takes off when a school inspector comes visiting and notes the flouting of rules. Meanwhile, the students are rehearsing for a children’s play put up by teachers. Set in a play-within-a-play format, the story weaves both these plots together.
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Patel says, “Usually, Parsi Gujarati plays are staged on two occasions at the NCPA. One is on Navroz, March 21, which is the first day of spring and the other is on Parsi New Year that is celebrated on August 17 or 18 every year. We stage an original production in March and in August, the NCPA commemorates the Adi Marzban Endowment Fund. It’s an initiative by them to collect funds and promote new Parsi talent writers, actors and directors and keep Marzban’s legacy alive.” Patel shares that the prerequisite for participating in the Adi Marzban Endowment Fund, is producing plays penned by the late playwright. “As [Marzban’s] works are set in the 50s and 60s, their relevance is lost. So, I take it up as a challenge and decide to rewrite the script, seeking inspiration from the plotline,” he adds.
The young playwright finalised the script after three trials over a period of two years. “The challenge was to get the correct script. We went through 14 different characters before zeroing in on the six that the lead actor would play. Each one had to look and sound different from the other.”
Much of the play involves the actors mocking themselves. “Apart from the confusion that entails while working on a play (like the production unit getting wrong sets and costumes), one of the funniest moments was when we had to mention the names of our sponsors on stage. The challenge was to ensure that it doesn’t appear like an advertorial. So, we show one of the characters as having a fictitious task of finding a sponsor for the school play and how he weaves it into the story. We have added humour by adding fictitious names apart from the real sponsors,” says Patel.
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Kerawalla, who had worked with Marzban closely, is happy with the way the production has shaped up. “Since the last three years, we are trying to encourage younger talent to come up with new works. Adi had written Matilda ’s script many years ago but Mehrzad has given it a new spin. He is my co-director and both of us have a healthy exchange of ideas and views. The intention is to motivate youngsters to create good productions,” states the 85-year-old director.
Matilda Noh Malido premieres on August 17 at 5 p.m. and 7:30 pm at Tata Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point