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| THE DESIGNER: Naseeruddin Shah |
Katha Collage II, the new play from Naseeruddin Shah?s group Motley opened at Prithvi theatre, Mumbai, on October 8 and played on till last night. This is the second instalment of Naseeruddin?s story-acting sessions that began with the Katha Collage of 2004. The aim in both is to bring to the fore the rich treasury of Indian literature as if in retort to the stock complaint about the paucity of good scripts.
While the first Katha collage had presented three stories ? Shatranj Ke Khiladi and Bade Bhai Saheb by Premchand and Sankraman by contemporary writer Kamtanath ? the second Katha collage focuses exclusively on seven short essays by Harishankar Parsai.
Why Parsai? ?Well, the choice was entirely my father?s,? Naseeruddin Shah?s daughter Heeba, who plays the lead in two of the stories, told Metro from Mumbai.
?These are all 10-minute skits that are a lot of fun and offer different points of view to life,? explained Heeba.
Though Naseer does not act in this series and the credit describes him as designer, he was the one ?who decided who does what and was always there to give us tips?, said another actor, Ankur Vikal. Others in the play are Rakesh Chaturvedi, Arvind Pande and Vishwajeet Pradhan.
The actors are all dressed in black for all the seven plays and only the narrator makes certain changes in costume. There are plenty of props the actors use on stage but the set remains the same ? a table and five chairs.
The seven tongue-in-cheek pieces take pot shots at objects and relationships we have long taken for granted.
The first play Telephone is a satire on how this now indispensable instrument is best kept switched off. ?Bechara Bhala Aadmi points out how we always club the word bechara while describing someone good so as to better exploit them,? said Ankur.
Heeba plays narrator in Private College Ka Ghoshna Patra which underlines the illiteracy and business mentality behind the educational system. Snan promotes the advantages of not bathing while Woh Zara Wife Hai Na exposes the basic propensity to see wives as second-class citizen.
Prem Prasang Mein Father, in which Heeba again plays narrator, is about the statutory presence of fathers as villains in love stories and Samay Pe Milne Waale extols the virtues of never coming on time.
Motley, which has staged most of its plays in Calcutta, is looking forward to visiting the city. ?We would love to come,? said Heeba. ?Proposals have been sent to Anamika Kala Sangam, let?s see who invites us,? said the group?s producer Jairaj Patil.
Sebanti Sarkar
The manager of the coffee shop in Midtown was sorry, but he could not let Yuri Kuklachev and his entourage come in; the New York City Department of Health does not allow animals in restaurants. In Kuklachev?s hand was a cat carrier containing Marusa, his favourite cat. He had brought her to New York, along with 25 other cats, on the nine-hour trip from Russia to perform in the Moscow Cats Theatre here, and he was not about to be deterred by details.
Then, through a translator, Kuklachev started to describe one of the cat?s most famous tricks. He slid out the carrier and in a moment Marusa was standing on her two front paws in the palm of his hand, her tail waving in the air. Customers stood up, craned their necks and pointed, as the manager hurried over to Kuklachev and laughed.
The show, which opened at the TriBeCa Performing Arts Centre and runs weekends through October 30, features 26 cats, Kuklachev?s wife, Yelena, as the Queen of the Cats, and two small, outnumbered dogs. The theatre has a total of nine different routines, including Cats From Outer Space and Nutcracker.
No one show is ever exactly like another. ?Cats are like actors,? Kuklachev says. ?They do what they want. Sometimes a cat doesn?t want one trick, so he does another.?
A cat called Tamara was brought out on stage and began rocking on a glittering pink rocking horse, nearly tipping over at one point. There would also be a Tightrope act. Two people held a pole horizontally while Belok, who is white, walked across it, with an intent manner.
A black cat named Charlie did the same thing, but upside down, grasping the pole from underneath with his four legs. Motia, who is off-white, outdid them both. She made her way across the pole from underneath, using only two legs. As the cats worked, Kuklachev clucked and cooed encouragingly.
The idea of performing cats came to Kuklachev in 1971, when he found a stray begging for food by performing on its hind legs and doing somersaults for onlookers. Kuklachev, who had attended clown school, realised he and the cat might be able to do something together. He named her Strelka, and soon she was performing with him at the Moscow State Circus.
In 1988, Kuklachev left the Moscow Circus and in 1990 he founded the Cats Theatre. It is very popular in Moscow, and over the years he has travelled to 80 countries. There are 120 cats in the company. The other 94 are back in Moscow at the theatre on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. It takes 55 cans of cat food every other day to feed them, with dry food and meat on alternate days.
The only cat not in the downstairs apartment is Marusa, who gets to sleep with Kuklachev. ?Marusa is like a guard dog,? he says. One day, Kuklachev would like to found a ?cat temple?, where 1,000 cats would live and tourists could visit the ?living museum?.
