BANGALORE: WeMove Theatre, a city-based theatre production house known for Magadi Days and PS I Don’t Love You, is coming out with a play titled Namma Metro, Phase 2.
A revised version of its earlier version, Namma Metro, the play tells the tale of Bangalore, tracing it through its rapidly changing phases. The second phase of the production too is written and directed by Abhishek Iyengar, founder of WeMove.
The play juxtaposes the old and the new: the old, peaceful, garden city that has turned into the busy IT hub. But amidst this rapid growth, the troupe feels, if you take a minute off your busy schedules to really look, you might catch a glimpse of the past — a laidback tea shop with a few people sitting around, chatting, loitering. And actors Rohini Raghunandan, SriHarsha Grama, Ujwala Rao, Anirudh Mahesh, Sohan Raghavendra, Sushanth Shandilya, Suraj K and Hampa Kumar Angadi are all set to give you a peek into what that might be like.
Set in a period of transition, it opens with four Bangaloreans — a senior citizen communist who started a media organisation, a techie who works for a start-up but wants to be an artist, a middle-aged bank clerk and a Muslim groundnut seller — who meet quite by chance. They share their thoughts on politics, society, religion, their lives and promise to take the audience on a ride through the city.
The play also talks about the change the cityscape has gone through from 2010, when the first run of the play began, to now.
"The characters have evolved and we have new events to focus on — then Namma Metro hadn't begun functioning and now it is; Nithyananda had gone to jail then and now people are talking about his impotency test," says Iyengar.
(Namma Metro, Phase 2 at K H Kala Soudha on October 12, starting at 7.30 pm)