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‘Prithvi Theatre Festival’: Faezeh Jalali brings a tragic comedy to stage
Summary
In Faezeh Jalali’s new farcical play, ‘Runaway Brides’, starring Junaid Khan, two mothers elope before a wedding and chaos ensues
Director Faezeh Jalali’s rehearsal room is no ordinary one. At a studio in Mumbai’s Aram Nagar II, an ensemble cast has come together for the play,Runaway Brides. There’s a mandap in the centre and a wedding in the offing. The couple looks stressed, the relatives look stressed. The grandmother is in love with the pandit. The pandit does not care about who is getting married. He just wants the ordeal to be over.
A closer look reveals that the couple hails from different religions and different parts of the country. The guests are competitive, and soon break out into a rap about names. There’s a lot of situational comedy. There’s also a lot of physicality. People are falling over, things are flying, farts are played up for humour, and you are left wondering, where is this going.
Jalali has written and directed the play for her company Fats the Arts, and will be premieringRunaway Brides at the Prithvi Theatre Festival 2024. The central premise is about two mothers (that of the bride and groom) who are in love with each other and decide to elope on the day of the wedding. The bride is a Muslim from north India and the groom a Hindu from the southern part. Stereotypes abound and commotion ensues when the two middle-aged women are discovered to be missing.
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“There was a story in the newspapers a couple of years ago. At a wedding, the father of the bride and the mother of the groom had eloped," says Jalali. “I had written a shorter version forStrictly Unconventional (a play with vignettes on relationships). In a senseRunaway Brides is a sequel to that play. I saw the perfect cis-het couple from there getting married here."
To tell the story of this tragic-comedy, Jalali chose the traditional farcical structure. “Someone or something goes missing, and everyone is looking. They are never really found until the end. And then a lot of revelations happen. The structure is simple. The characters are such that you become engaged in their idiosyncrasies," she explains.
Jalali loves a good farce, and has in the past used it for her playBone of Contention, set in a housing society where a bone falls into a home. “It’s a look at the country and society through the microcosm of a housing society. Here, I am doing the same thing with a wedding," she adds.
This also allows Jalali to work with polarities in people and communities. “When you are working with stereotypes you can take them to the hilt. You take the most basic human characteristics, build them, and laugh at them," she says. “The drama is created in polarities. They enable you to see the similarities between these extremes. Anybody who cannot see the other side also makes for a great character."
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The form, which allows for both the political and the comical, also makes way for interesting characters. Jalali finds them in her home, at her day job in a gym, and all around her. She is not a social person but enjoys watching people. “I believe we are all a little bit unhinged and it’s fun to watch it play out," she confesses. “My family is a good starting point. They are my best study material. A lot of idiosyncrasies come from there."
She also believes that while a farce holds up a mirror to society through the medium of comedy, at the heart of it, it is tragedy. “The situation is tragic for those involved as in the case of the couple (from the news) whose parents eloped. It becomes funny when you look at it from a distance," she says.
Now and then she finds ways to subvert these stereotypes. In this play, the pandit, caught in comical circumstances, is non-judgemental. The two mothers on the run aren’t bogged down by guilt. “A lot of people asked me, aren’t the mothers feeling bad about leaving their kids? I didn’t want to put that pressure on my characters. They are not sentimental about it. I feel strongly about characters that don’t follow convention. Are we not willing to allow two mothers to run off? Would you feel the same if it was two fathers?" she questions.
‘Runaway Brides’ open at the Prithvi Theatre Festival 2024 on 12 November at 6 pm and 9 pm. It will also play at the Repertwahr Festival in Lucknow on 21 December, 6 pm.
