A moment from Dampati

Nothing like a Manoj Mitra comedy to cheer you up after a dog?s day at work. That is the prevailing response while watching Pratikriti?s Dampati, one of Mitra?s many lighter pieces. Of course, he has made his name on the strength of his deeper dramas, that he normally reserves for his own group Sundaram, while providing others with racier scripts like Dampati.

As the title suggests, Dampati deals with wedlock, rather, deadlock. In the same building reside an older couple (the owners) and a younger couple (the tenants), both not on the happiest of terms in their married lives. The seniors constantly squabble at the top of their voices, but we realise gradually that this is their way of expressing affection. The juniors, stressed out by the drudgery of their daily jobs, cannot manage to keep their flame burning.

In both relationships there enters a third party: the neighbourhood doctor, the owners? good friend, of whom the wife is enamoured; and the tenant husband?s college girlfriend, a femme fatale who appears out of the past to ensnare him.

The situations could well turn out grim, but Mitra goes down the farcical path, and it is enjoyment most of the way if one wants merely to laugh. The thrust and parry of the senior citizens (acted by the director Alok Deb and Chhanda Chatterjee) appeals most of all, heightened by his fragile health and her shrill soprano.

Jayanta Datta Barman and Aditi Banerjee portray the more unexceptional young pair, whose story moves in a more typical direction, too, as they head on triangular trysts to Bakkhali ? shades of many seaside resort adulterous comedies, whether English (Noel Coward) or Bengali (Badal Sircar). There they and we meet perhaps the funniest cameo in the play, Tapan Dasgupta as the stark-eyed hotel manager, who pretends to be hard of hearing so as to get to know of any hanky-panky among his guests.

Out of the blue, however, in the second act, Mitra throws melodramatic spanners into the works of both plots. Tragedy mixed with comedy has a hoary lineage, but melodrama with farce forms a strange kettle of fish indeed. Suddenly, the stage resembles the tear-soaked screen of a TV soap, equally lathery, making the cast look distinctly uncomfortable. But once Mitra removes the spanners, as arbitrarily as he inserted them, Dampati hastens to its happy ending.