Cast: Amit Mistry, Anand Tiwari, Anu Menon, Bugs Bhargava Krishna, Imran Adil, Neil Bhoopalam, Preetika Chawla, Rajit Kapur, Shernaz Patel  

Directors: Akarsh Khurana, Arghya Lahiri, Kunaal Roy Kapoor, Nadir Khan,  Rahul da Cunha & Rajit Kapur

Playwright: Anuvab Pal,Ashok Mishra, Farhad Sorabjee,Oliver Beale,  Purva Naresh,Rahul da Cunha Joanna Murray Smith 

Duration: Two Hours 

Language: English,   Hindi 

Theatre Group: Rage Productions

 

 

Rage’s “One on One” is an ensemble of pieces that evoke and entertain simultaneously. The subject matter of these monologues is a pot-pourri of several contemporary issues. Their speakers include a bureaucrat, a wannabe socialite, small-town migrants, the dead bodyguard of a CM, a lamppost, a miffed airline passenger, a wishful widow and a terrorist dropout.

 

Praiseworthy among these pieces are Purva Naresh’s “Aabodana”-a beautifully melodic voicing of small town migrants (Pritika Chawla and Anand Tiwari) who struggle with their misfitting self-image in Mumbai; Anuvab Pal’s “ The Bureaucrat”- an Indian Civil Servant’s rant against evolving India; Farhad Sorabjee’s “Load Shedding”-the observations and ramblings of an eye-in-the-sky lamp-post at the Worli sea link junction and “Creado Constance” –a widow’s musings on chance and possibility. As is often the case with socio-political satire parts of the text sink to bitter cynicism (Ashok Mishra’s “Kachre ki Hifazat”) They are salvaged however by the overall spirited tone of “One on One “ and its zesty epigrams.

 

Anu Menon is a side-splitting suburban socialite; Anand Tiwari beams brightly as the omniscient lamppost; Shernaz Patel’s imbues the character of Constance Creado with wonderment and life, Amit Mistry charms as panic-stricken unsuccessful terrorist and Rajit Kapur is a vivacious Brijesh Khanna.

 

One on One is cast in clean lines in keeping with the mode of the monologue. Kunal Roy Kapoor though gives an interesting visual dimension to “The Bureaucrat”- the speaker’s progression from idealism (Anand Tiwari) to content corruptness (Neil Bhoopalam) and eventually a happy callousness (Bugs Bhargava Krishna) is brought out through a visual continuum. The play scores highest points for it vivid use of the local idiom. Language and dialect variations abound just like India which is truly multi-lingual. Minimalist sets are offset by idiosyncratic speakers, who fill up the stage with the colour of their tongue and the distinctiveness of their traits.

 

The act pools together some extremely well-written, neatly directed and skilfully enacted monologues. It is one of those rare texts that will have you thinking and guffawing at the same time.