The thing about theatre is that you feel a certain bonding with the actors on stage as soon as you settle down into your seats. As the lights dim and the hushed silence permits you to hear the dialogues clearly, you start identifying with the actors and characters on stage far more than you would when watching a film. It is almost as if there is a sacred pact between the theatre actor and the audience. It is almost as if the creative process is co-owned.Have you ever wondered why that happens?
As we settled down into #TheTheatre at #MalloftheEmirates to watch #JustLikeThat, I found this gent with a headlock of curly hair that would have given Saibaba a run for his money. He was walking around nonchalantly engaging with the audience, cracking a joke or just responding to someone with a smart repartee. After a while, he went back to the stage and seated himself at the sole table that was visible. You could see that he was visibly bored. As indeed most watchmen are. I think Satya had slipped into his role much before the play started!
My friend Manoj told me that this was the third run of the comedy show. Both the earlier seasons were sold out. I was struck by the idea itself - a clash of myriad cultures in Dubai’s own melting pot - Jumeirah Lake Towers. Here was a story of a few neighbours living on the same floor in a building and how they face off triggered by a ‘certain splash’ one night. The folks include a British businessman and his greek wife ( half his age), an Asian investment banker and his Lebanese flight attendant, an Emirati writer ( also writing online!) and his Philipino wife. And orchestrating the confusion and the resolution in the background is Satya, the South Indian watchman of the building society.
I have always believed that this is an story waiting to be told. As Steve the British businessman points out, Dubai is not really a melting pot of world cultures; instead it is more like a salad of varied cultures - each coexisting with the other. And since there is little attempt to understand each other’s culture and idiosyncrasies, there is bound to be confusion. #JustLikeThat is a hilarious take on this situation and the only folks who take advantage of this are the security guards, food delivery agents and the credit card telecallers!
The refreshing thing about #JustLikeThat is that it does not gravitate towards residual caricaturism. With the varied accents, cultural nuances and language errors, this is fertile ground for generalisation and typecasted spoof. Instead, the show anchors its writing on sharp insights. Behind the facade of each character, you realise that the response to any stimulus can be so different. The leaflets pushed under the door have some posters saying “I know what you did last summer”. While the others are intrigued or even unnerved by something like this, the Emirati rubbish this in a trice. Khalli Balli.. Why bother about such things!
#JustLikeThat is written by #AsadRazaKhan and #ManjuRamanan and is a light-hearted take on expat life in Dubai. The show relies heavily on the woodwork representing the apartments in the building and the elevator as well as the spot lights to play up the dialogues. Director #PriyankaJohri manages to extract commendable performances from the cast comprising #EricDury and #AsadRazaKhan himself. #JustLikeThat will definitely bring a smile to your eyes, especially if you are part of the circus here in Dubai!
But back to that question about co-owing the creative process. I think the audience in a theatre is almost willing the performers to give it their best and egging them on to surprise themselves with their craft. As a result, you tend to leave the theatre with some sense of ownership that is never quite there in a film. A film needs to be rated and can be excellent or average; a play is always an inclusive ritual of which you are part!
