Theatre Review: YĀTRĀ, TAPAC, 1 October 2020

YĀTRĀ is theatre as a vibrant montage of India and beyond. Absolutely topical for this unprecedented year in human history. Reaches back 50 years and also 500 years. Mark Twain’s remark about history included in the program, is made true. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

Directors: Amit Ohdedar, Sananda Chatterjee, Aman Bajaj, Rishabh Kapoor, Sneha Chetty.

YĀTRĀ presents eight vignettes. Short pieces which segue seamlessly together. From the well-drilled 25-strong ensemble cast. A tribute to ensemble director Sananda Chatterjee.

This year is Prayas Theatre’s fifteenth year. I speak briefly to Amit Ohdehar who is a co-founder along with actress Sudeepta Vyas performing tonight. It has been a serious mission to be able to get to opening night. Started rehearsals a few weeks before the first lockdown in March this year. They held Zoom meeting rehearsals. Then live ones limited to ten people. Only just now have they been able to have everyone together.

The Company wanted to present the diversity of a sub-continent which is as varied as Europe. And to portray contemporary issues which are not confined to any particular time. Some of the writers here are young and very much on the current zeitgeist.

Keats Was a Tuber, written by Pollie Sengupta is one such writer. Teachers at a college specializing in English. Generally humorous but with underlying tension amongst the older order and the less senior. Until a brash and quite greasy looking young man enters. Wearing brown trousers with the biggest flares I have seen outside a Seventies blaxploitation flick.

I Really have to Meet God is a short absurdist piece. Kept on track by skillful acting and direction.

Aurat means woman. At a house-party gathering are a socialite mother, with her two daughters, a housekeeper and a friend. Charades are being played. Each woman has a confessional tale to tell presented as a soliloquy. Quite powerful in light of the ongoing abuse towards women coming more to the fore in recent years. Slowly.

Guards at the Taj is pure Shakespeare comedy interlude. Of the style that can tell uncomfortable truths in the guise of clowning. Often bawdy soldiers with the Bard. And so here too with Imperial Guards guarding the Taj Mahal at daybreak. Except it is the first sunrise in 1648. The extreme human cost to portray extreme beauty may be revealed.

One of the stand-out pieces is Thaneer Thaneer. This is a short part of an acclaimed longer play written by Komal Swaminathan. The director Rishab Kapoor still manages to pack an extraordinary amount of story-telling into twenty minutes. Spare but as packed full of dramatic events and insight as Of Mice and Men. The title means water, and its lack for a small village. A heroic fugitive. Socialists, idealists and corrupt politicians. Gandhi is invoked as a radical. A fast-moving narrative keeps it from getting too polemical.

Know the Truth is a short bitingly satirical piece on media and propaganda. And like true satire it is confrontational and not subtle at all. It may be written twenty years ago, but the real shock is the understanding of how old fake media really is. They more things change, the more they….

Ten Ton Tongue is very much wrathful female anger and reacting against disempowerment. The surprising thing is that though the piece may be more experimental, it fits right in with the diverse show.

The final piece Harlesden High Street is East-West. Director Amit Ohdedar particularly admires playwright Abhishek Majumdar and this is a favourite. Again, it encompasses a large narrative in a short space of stage time but reveals truths and insights covering generations. From migrants coming to the West. To their children growing up in this new country. You can be both Asian and European until you end up being grey in the middle. It is England, but grey is also the weather. Two cultures can exist side by side in a parallel world.

An ambitious project specifically put together for the fifteen-year anniversary of the theatre company Prayas. In the end the production does give some sense of the vastness and culture of India. The culture as it transforms itself and entwines into the West. And the human nature that we all share.

Rev Orange Peel

YĀTRĀ plays
1 to 10 October
Tuesday to Friday, 7.30pm
Saturday 3.30pm and 8pm
Sunday 3.30pm

TAPAC, 100 Motions Rd, Pt Chevalier
Tickets: $25 – $30
Bookings at https://www.tapac.org.nz/whats-on/yatra-prayas
https://prayas.co.nz/