Above the bed is a floral-designed screen stating 'Once the sky was blue'. The words are also emphasised on the screens to the left and to the right. They act as a reference to the world we have known before the play. The world in CHARGE has somersaulted into a remote-controlled bedroom in a large exposed electrical circuit. Its inhabitants are a 'biological' couple- Martha and George, whose lives are managed and monitored by their androids or 'chargeable friends', Gigi and Pierre. The sky outside has ''spoilt''.
Today than ever before, we are closer to this projection of a hyper reality in sci-fi mode. Brooklyn-based playwright Eric Kaiser has written an admirable surrealistic comedy complimenting our digital age. Consigned to their beds with every need taken care of in an approximation of virtual reality, the couple, as Martha describes her feelings, is like a ''screw'' in the big gadgetry. In this made-to-order efficiency in which the couple is a shadow of its previous human self, misgivings and dissatisfaction creep in nevertheless.
Martha becomes obsessed with the number of veins lining her face- a face that has not been exposed to sunlight or seen the sky for what we can assume has been a long, long time. As Martha gets excited by the idea of engaging with people and ''social issues'', she finds her veins disappearing. She is greatly pleased and tries to cajole her husband George into ''charging'' their hearts by talking about ''social issues'' and ''change''. But George is addicted to fighting his competitors for their toes. As Martha struggles to find her purpose in the film 'The Hood', set in an impoverished black neighbourhood, the satire is not lost. George on the other hand continues to be obsessed with gaming and his collection of toes till Martha tells him that the Aztecs are more ''extreme'' than he is. There is deep irony in being reminded of an ancient civilization in this situation.
As Martha and George obsessively go about their business, they become aware of an intruder called Chiclet in their bedroom. Their androids announce that the system has been breached and set themselves upon Chiclet. Chiclet is poor and from the world outside the bedroom's door. She is an invader; a virus that must be eliminated.
This Mumbai-based production, directed by actress Yuki Ellias, departs from the pre-show instructions in the text and in its stage design (the play is available online). For instance, there is a giant, steel door to the couple's bedroom- a set piece of purposeful imagery which is missing. The room too is meant to be grey and sterile, which has not been achieved, although the circuitry lining the bed and at the sides has been thought through. The big black goggles that Martha and George use are in place and the dress of the two androids with the unobtrusive keyboard detailing is clever. In the play, Chiclet makes her appearance at the very beginning. She has lines with poetic connotations of the sky, particularly significant in the context, but in the production, she just mouths her name and appears much later.
Directors are known to take liberties with the text but sometimes erasures can affect the play's ethos. It is not till the second half that the production starts to engage. There is a social critique at work here and the subtext has a metaphysical allusion that is piercing in its context. The production is skimming these more complex undertones. I felt thoroughly distanced in the first half and I attribute it to core coordinates like design (a particularly important aspect in this case), stage directions, and the characters not being internalised. There is a build-up to the play even before it starts. We hear none of George's furious tapping at his keyboard or get the sense that this couple has not left its bed in probably years. We also miss the chemistry between them even though they have nothing useful left to say to each other. The concepts of time and space are key material to this production. Padma Damodaran (Martha) and Asif Ali Beg (George) deliver a spirited performance but is it what the play needs? Damodaran's red lipstick prominently outlines her lips, a caricaturist hint perhaps at the residue of her previous human self? Gigi (Samridhi Dewan) is the more animated version of her 'Madame' while Pierre (Jeff Goldberg) is comparatively reserved. Samridhi Dewan's bird-like alertness and her vivacity make Gigi vivid. Jeff Goldberg pulls off a philosophical tract in the midst of the deliberate mawkishness besieging the drama of the film 'The Hood' in which Martha has found her way.
Chiclet (Uttara Sharma), unfortunately, for the attention her character deserves, is left untapped. Yet the little girl's hovering is a fragile reminder of our sentient selves and collective moral conscience in a time when the binaries between man and machine are swiftly coalescing and collapsing.
