Kala Mandir recently reverberated with the music and lyric, dialogue and drama of La-Ilaaj. Playing out over an engaging 150 minutes, La-Ilaaj — that marks the return of actor Pankaj Tripathi to theatre after a dozen years — touched upon themes of love and passion, consent and self-respect through its story of a local band party and its disparate members who set out to define love — with varying degrees of struggle and success — in their individual lives.
Produced by Pankaj Tripathi and wife Mridula’s theatre group Roopkatha Rangmanch and presented in Calcutta by Anamika Kala Sangam, with t2 and t2ONLINE as media partners, what kept the full house on the evening of April 19 enthralled was the play’s live, ensemble-based musical format, featuring multiple actor-singers and the use of instruments like tabla, dholak, cajon and harmonium, to name a few.
While Pankaj Tripathi featured in a cameo towards the closing stages of La-Ilaaj, directed by Faiz Mohammed Khan, taking centrestage was its team of mostly young actors, with Tripathi’s daughter Aashi creating quite an impression as its leading lady.
Quietly confident and blessed with natural presence, Aashi plays Maria, a woman of today who firmly believes in the fact that love must be rooted in self-respect and responsibility. Maria finds hers in Jugal, the heir-apparent of the eponymously named band party, who wants to move out of the shadow of his perpetually critical and discouraging father. Jugal, effortlessly played by Omkar Patil, who also serves as La-Ilaaj’s key actor-singer and music supervisor, discovers the various stages of love — attraction, affection, trust, devotion, sacrifice — after meeting Maria.
A threat to their relationship arrives in the form of local goon Ballu, who seeks Maria’s affection, but she rejects him, with the narrative driving in the message that “forced love is not love” and that women are not to be blamed for saying ‘no’.” Despite his seemingly anti-hero character, it is Ballu — actor Nehhpal Gautamm owns the stage — who provides a large segment of the laughs in La-Ilaaj. His “Yeh Satyajit Ray waali ladki” every time he spotted a particular Bengali character on stage — draped in a laal paar shaada sari, no less — proved to be an instant classic.
Also focusing on themes of honour and entitlement through a character who struggles with domestic violence and another who self-harms as a fallout of unrequited love, La-Ilaaj — described by its director as “a reflection of our times and a story woven with complex emotions and raw social truths"— also wove in some cheeky political commentary, mostly mined for laughs. What caught our attention was a character playing a trumpet and taking a dig at US president Donald Trump, with: “Desh chalaana hota hain jaise band party chalaana. Upar se yeh ‘trump(et)!’” We also loved a moment which subtly but tellingly touched upon how we live in times where most people, engaging in knee-jerk outrage, get instantly offended.
The maximum claps and cheers were, deservedly, reserved for Pankaj Tripathi. The actor whose every role on the big screen speaks of quality and impact, wheeled in on a segway of sorts, putting in a special appearance as Diljale Ustaad. Song, dance, drama — Tripathi delivered all in his limited stage time, in only the way he can.
“La-Ilaaj has been an extraordinary experience for Calcutta’s theatre audience. The overwhelming response at Kala Mandir reaffirms that powerful storytelling, when rooted in our own cultural idioms, creates a deep and lasting impact. What makes this production truly special is its use of the nautanki/tamasha style — an indigenous musical theatre form of India — which brings vibrancy, rhythm, and a unique emotional connect to the narrative,” was the word from M.L. Lohia, president, Anamika Kala Sangam.
Present in the audience was actor Megha Burman, recently seen in Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy. “I thoroughly enjoyed La-Ilaaj. The ensemble cast, beautiful stage design and foot-tapping songs came together so effortlessly, and I really liked the social message it conveyed. Pankaj Tripathi showing up at the end was the icing on the cake,” Megha told t2.