Happy couple's time pass

All's Well, staged at the Ranga Shankara yesterday, is a neatly executed sitcom. It is based on the works of T Sunandamma, the Kannada humorist who died in 2006.

Pramod Shiggaon has directed the play for Kriyative Theatre Trust, a group founded by Laxmi Chandrashekhar, who has opted out of teaching English and now acts on stage and in Kannada TV serials.

All's Well is an English reworking of a Kannada play scripted by Sundar.
Kapinipati and Bhagirati are an elderly couple preparing for Deepavali. Two of their children live abroad, and the other two live in Mumbai and Delhi. The couple look forward to celebrating the festival with two of their just-married children and their spouses.

The play draws on the stereotypical rivalry between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law to create situations characteristic of TV comedies such as I Love Lucy and Tu Tu Main Main. It also throws in a parallel father-in-law and son-in-law rivalry, and cruises along predictably to a happy ending.

All's Well is totally middle class in its setting, philosophy and expression. The humour is recognisable to those familiar with the Old Mysore (southern Karnataka) of a generation or two ago, and echoes the writing of A N Murthy Rao, Rashi and Beechi (but not so much Masti, who, even when he told a story in a light-hearted tone, plumbed greater psychological depths).

The gentle, lifelong mocking of the spouse's family is a convention that is no longer in vogue. (Urban working couples are gripped by angst and locked in more urgent quarrels!). The play's fuss about the ritual bath would perhaps look strange to the Mumbaikar who would rather drink and gamble to celebrate Diwali; it is also unlikely the Kannadiga who works at a BPO will relate to the relaxed banter. But don't hold that against the play.

The couple plan their revenge on their children's spouses … This is portrayed as innocent good humour, and in any case, they are liberals who wouldn't really want to interfere in their children's lives. Kapinipati and Bhagirati represent the elderly Brahmin couples living by themselves in Bangalore and Mysore, with their children away in the US. They bear no ill will, and talk of their offspring with pride, but their loneliness cannot be denied.

Kapinipati and Bhagirati end up dreaming (not metaphorically but literally: they doze off and dream) of situations where they outsmart their supposed enemies, but when they wake up, they realise that they are friends and family after all.
Laxmi Chandrashekhar as Bhagirati and Sundar as Kapinipati and Ananthu brought energy to the production, and their English dialogue sounded appropriately Kannada-flavoured.

The production had its moments, as when their Mumbai son and daughter-in-law break into a Mumbai movie-style gig before setting off for work, highlighting the incongruity of the Hindi "national" culture in an orthodox south Indian home. That scene was followed by the Kannadiga mother doing a devi stuti and attracting the paying guest, a musician, to do a pop-style fusion with her!

All's Well is the kind of play the more serious Kannada theatre buff might scorn. But it is neatly executed, and has the potential to charm Kannada TV audiences and tickle the fancy of this city's comedy-loving English theatre-goers.

The play is unpretentious if unambitious… what some would call time pass.

(This review appeared in print on October 6, 2008)