Me Kash & Cruise play review

Deepa Punjani

Rage theatre company�s latest production, directed by Rahul da Cunha may not exactly be an autobiographical piece of theatre but it is undoubtedly driven by the theme of friendship and the big and little dramas enfolding from there on. It�s a theme that Rahul da Cunha in his playwright�s role seems to identify with the most. At least of late. Think CLASS OF 84�, PUNE HIGHWAY and now ME, KASH & CRUISE.

The play revolves around three friends, their relationship with each other since their college days and of their reflections and memories of Bombay. But while the play has a slick direction and an eye for character nuances and idiyosyncracies, its take is simplistic; its end result way too convenient. But once you overlook the facile nature of the text you are treated to college yuppiness, the average conversation that is typical of the urban, middle and upper classes in the city, spontaneous humour and some very fine performances, which include Rajit Kapur�s superbly performed cameos.

The �Me� in the play is Pooja Thomas (Yamini Namjoshi) whose narrative is interspersed with scenes that move from college theatre rehearsals to coming to grips with Bombay that somewhere along the way lost its soul to Mumbai. Her journey is intertwined with that of her two closest friends- Rakesh Kashyap, nicknamed Kash (Neil Bhoopalam) and Parvez Khan, nicknamed Cruise (Amit Mistry). It is their individual personalities that make their characters identifiable and in places, hugely entertaining.

When Cruise, the Delhiite does his version of the �Spanish-Bhangra� or when Rajit Kapur takes on the role of a marketing executive of an event management company, you know that Rahul da Cunha has the pulse of his audience firmly in his hands. The trio- Pooja, Kash & Cruise thus relive their years from the mid-eighties to the present; their relationship taking crucial turns in instances such as when Kash wanders off in pursuit of an inner discovery or when Pooja and Cruise stop living together. Their paths converge and diverge at different times but the two things that bring them together are theatre and the love-hate relationship that they have come to have with the city.

Mahesh Tinaikar�s sound design peppers the production with Western and Indian popular numbers, reminiscent of the the eighties and the nineties and which span over to the present day. These serve to underline the collective nostalgia of a certain generation. The set by Xheight design has an experimental functionality to it but does not particularly enhance the production. Pushan Kripalani and Arghya Lahiri�s light design is efficient enough though. The sum of the performances from the four actors in the production is quite good too. Neil Bhoopalam�s KASH subtly captures the South Bombay boy with a Western sensibility. Amit Mistry�s Cruise on the other hand serves as a successful foil to Kash�s personality.

You will come away enjoying the histrionics and there is a poignant moment when Pooja recalls the 1992 riots and blasts, which did change the social make-up of Bombay considerably. But while the city is constantly in the foreground it does not lead to any real engaging of the mind beyond what is known and often repeated. In many a way this is a romantization of its own kind even as Cruise admonishes Pooja by reminding her of real lives out there, which daily battle suburban bound trains.

There is creative and clever packaging behind it, which is in evidence right from the program design of the play and down to its smooth and quick pace. Yet the journey is worth it. Rahul�s plays seemed to have found their niche between theatre that is frowned upon as not relating to the masses and that theatre, which is dismissed as catering to the masses and which in all truth is often banal. This in-between space can have its own strengths and weaknesses. But Rage has certainly mastered the art of maximizing on the former in its productions.

*The writer is Editor of this site, a theatre critic and an academic keenly interested in Theatre & Performance Studies.

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