A KIND OF TRUE STORY celebrates the ordinary, those who have not tasted 'success', through an hour and a half long journey on stage. The seven characters seem to tumble out of a writer's imagination but they are also quite rooted in reality. Imagination and reality intertwine through the six degrees of separation concept and by interval everybody has a connection to everybody else. On paper, the devised performance looks promising but on stage the lack of depth is jarring.
Rahul Bagga (Sameer Sheikh) is the writer in question who rents a house in a building that's being eyed for redevelopment. The rest of the cast are the writer's neighbours and the play explores the various facets of their lives. The characters come together to support, and protest, the building's reconstruction as well as portray their personal story lines. That's eight separate and one collated story unravelling in a span of 90 minutes. That is a lot. So, whether intended or not there are spills that aren't easy to mop up.
Storylines like that of the handicapped singer, who is also apparently an aspiring actress, is very superficial. The school teacher, who is also a closet cross-dressing singer, finds support in the social activist in spearheading the fight against redevelopment. But when the social worker is thrown out of her rented apartment she (exasperatingly!) finds no support from the teacher, or her 'boyfriend', who also lives in the same building. Loopholes like these become more and more obvious as the play progresses. Distressingly.
The only ray of hope in the play (and perhaps the credit goes entirely to the actors) are Shruti Sridharan (Manasi Jadhav) and Bhushan Vikas (Datta Mahtre). The two actors appear genuine as they convey their aspirations, hopes, dreams and fears. That makes their stories stand out in the entire ensemble.
The play is also a musical. Unfortunately, it reminds one of Doordarshan's Chitrhaar in its good days. The songs, although hummable, are disconnected from the script. They barely do anything to move the story forward.
A KIND OF TRUE STORY might have received a huge round of applause, from an audience that included mostly friends, but it needs to revisit the story it's portraying and give some thought to making it crisper, perhaps.
*Aditi Sharma enjoys watching theatre and writing about it.
