Letter to Kabirbhai Thakor after watching his Mid Summer Night's Dream In Gujarat - A Romantic Musical

 

Dear Kabir bhai

I have been watching your plays for quite a few years now.  Thank you very much for consistently bringing
thought-provoking and yet entertaining plays all these years. I witnessed you
handle content and execution on sensitive issues of social and political
importance - be it MS university instance of harassment of arts faculty
professor, Gujarat riots, Rohit Vemula suicide, etc. - with honesty and audacity.
 With musical children play Mowgli, I saw
you moving to larger and deeper social connect.  A deep satirical take on consumerism, the Mowgli
play was for the mass and class alike. And now, the brand new, fresh and hot
from the oven - Mid summer night’s dream in Gujarat.

The play has your signatures all over the place. The entertaining
musical play questions the social, political and cultural hypocrisy and status
quo with loads of light and dark humor.  If
Mowgli talked about children, this one talks about adolescent and early youth.
If Mowgli helped children question their priorities, this one encouraged the
young ones to reflect on the excessive use of internet over age-old wisdom of
the loved ones. Through the medium of the target groups, while Mowgli questioned
the young and often working parents, this one questioned the middle-aged parents
and the society in general. You knit the inter-generational issues very
smoothly in you narratives. There are questions within your narratives. And,
your play questions the prevailing narratives too. I love this nuanced writing
of yours.

The play smoothly moves in and out of imaginations and realities of the rehearsals
and the play within the play. A lot of light moments in the early parts of the
play reminded of me of my theater classes where most of us were struggling to
get the scene going – inside the play doing rehearsals, and outside it in terms
of food and drinks to support the development processes. The struggles of
theater – that of place, space, funds, properties, formal and informal censorship
of authorities, permissions from parents etc. – are so very real. I learn to
appreciate theater more as I experienced and witnessed most of them by doing a
drama class. This play portrayed those struggle righteously.  In that sense, this play is a tribute to
theater community for their dedication and struggle to survive and keep the
flag of theater high.

The writing is tight. I understand that it is very difficult to write a
farce that involves layers of a) rehearsals of a play within a play, b) dreams
and realities, and c) actuality and hallucination inside a script of a play.  It is further difficult to do a musical with appropriate
lyrics and compose them to suit the live chorus and solo singing. You have done
a fantastic job here as a writer who visualized the play as it has turned out.  Your lyricist and composer enhanced your
writing to lift the play well.   Overall, you, as a director, ensured the
layers unfold beautifully.  I was particularly
stunned when you shattered the naïve dream of the youth of turning the tide by trapping
the powerful police. The play could have ended there with euphoria.  But, then how can Kabir bhai’s narrative not
have shades of realism! The story then moved to bring the progressive Dadi
singing solo the wisdom of the elders. The play took off to a new dimension
thereafter.  And, then you made sure to
show the mirror to the audience.  Society
is a reflection of their members and one cannot wash away their responsibility of
inaction.  The call of ‘get well soon’
was soft and yet very sharp.

The actors have done their parts subtly and fittingly. I was particularly
mesmerized with Sohni playing Pinky with so much conviction. She has amazing ability
to hold the space for herself and others.  She commanded her parts in the play very well
through a perfect mix of subtlety and exaggeration as needed. Deep has done the
Google with ease, as he has been doing other roles in past as well. The Duo of
Suraj and Suhard playing multiple roles reminded me of Ashish bhai of Mowgli. Hetal
Mody continued her charm from short videos she keeps sharing on her Facebook
pages. The other male and female actors – many of whom were also part of the
play Asli maja to sabke saath me hain?? – were very nice in their acting,
singing, and dancing parts. With so limited properties and settings, the actors
and content were the real kings of the play.

The 90 minutes were full of laughter, varied emotions and thoughts and
appreciations of love, life and expression thereof through amazing art of
theater and drama.

Thank you, Kabir bhai, for many things that you have done. Most
importantly for developing and nurturing Scrapyard as a space and place for
drama, dialogues, debates and delivery of performances. And, then a lot of
gratitude for writing, directing, and bringing to us fantastic performances
like this one. I am sure – and I wish and pray – this play reaches to many
across generations, get us thinking about many issues in light and entertaining
ways.

Lots of love.

Mayur