Butter and mashed bananas

Very innocuous title. Butter and Mashed Bananas. Kept saying mashed potatoes for the longest time. I took the title very lightly. When you see it pop up as a search result on google for ‘ Whats on in bangalore?’, one legitimately assumes this is going to be a light hearted play, perfect for weekend unwind- mode entertainment.

As I found out subsequently, butter and mashed bananas are directly connected with the hangman's noose. It’s no less than the oleaginous stuff the noose is coated with that helps you glide smoothly into the other world at the behest of society’s boot!

And here I was thinking it was an English breakfast concoction or something.

It was perfect for weekend entertainment though. I was laughing my arse off most of the play. Hilarious stuff.

Funny as it was, there were some really cool devices that were used and I have to say the play was undoubtedly very cleverly abstracted.

I'm a tad possessive about my weekends and I confess I almost cried when the thespians came on stage with little or no clothes on and stood astride eachother singing something that sounded in between ‘Rang de Basanti’ and ‘I am a Walrus’. The crinkled bedsheet and the cheap pink tub behind them weren’t helping either. The new Jessica Alba flick in town suddenly seemed irresistibly appealing. I'm no philistine, but I confess I get nervous when theatre takes that cruel dive into that sea of the arcane, which it proudly and euphemistically calls the abstract. It's almost like it’s the director telling the audience, “Alright, thank you for coming. Your investment in our tickets at this time of recession is greatly appreciated. Now fuck off and let us do the theatre thing.” Theatre gets quite Emperor's-new-clothesy a lot of the time, I think.

Not butter and mashed potat…er..bananas though.

Abstraction, if it's not done well can really backfire. It can expose the triteness of the thought process like nothing else, and have it come off as naked and laughable and downright silly. In my own area of work, graphic design, you see that a lot.

But here it was all very scientific almost. The attire being non-descript and sparse, was perfect because they were all playing many roles. A cast of three was attempting to pull off a script that involved many many characters. Their threads (or lack of them) were neutral, free of cultural, social or economical nuances.

That aside, being bare bodied helped accentuate the choreography, which was an essential device in the play. It was used brilliantly as a tool for the actors to seamlessly switch from one character to another. They would immerse you in movement and then suddenly, out of the synchronized, symmetrical motion that had hypnotized you, would pop a different character. Normally choreography is a tool one uses to tell a story, or to embellish a story, like in bharat natyam or a broadway musical, but here it was smartly used as a digression.

The choreographic movements were very Indian classical dance inspired. I don’t know if it was intentional but I think it worked to underline the fact that the play was a dig at Indian culture. Plus the ghungroo on the feet added to the percussion soundtrack that was being used to lead up to climaxes.

And I have to mention how adroitly they used a malleable device like a bedsheet to communicate bed, table, noose, mask, gag, frame and a zillion other things. It was flawlessly executed, without a fumble to speak of! It was quite amazing and I’m sure it wasn’t easy. It was as inventive as 'Who’s Line', (the show where everything's made up and the points don’t matter), and the bonus was that it blended excellently with the choreography because of the material’s flowy character.

And, again, I don’t know if it was intended, but there was something very ‘Gandhi’ about the crinkly white sheet that added another layer of satire for me.

The humour was intelligent, with repartees that stuck with you, and it kept the audience hanging on to every word. It took a dig at some odious characteristics of Indian society but didn’t let you wallow in the filth. If I had to narrow down on one central theme it would be hypocrisy, with references to 'dry humping', the indiscernible and ludicrous ways of the Indian censor board and planetary intervention during copulation, among other hilarities.

And the protagonist, a well intentioned man, fighting against the unbelievably cretinous obstacles that the government puts in front of him, is a figure easy to empathise with in this country. Moral policing, one of the themes in the play, is more prevalent than ever today, and I believe this was written in the days before it even hit the mainstream media. In that sense this play was almost prophetic.

So, if you were patient enough to survive my attempt at theatre appreciation, you'll have assumed that the play was a big hit with me. Bacon and Scrambled Eggs is a great play and with due apologies to Jessica Alba, with whom my hormonal loyalties shall always lie, I would recommend it to anyone.