With 38 musicians coming together in mellifluous harmony seated in the lit-up compartments of a larger-than-life backdrop, theatre director-playwright Roysten Abel’s hit show The Manganiyar Seduction is, in his words, ‘an auditory and visual spectacle’. Having performed 700 shows worldwide, the show is set to come to the city through a partnership with Bhumija. In 19 years, according to Abel, this is the ‘fourth or fifth public showing’ in Bengaluru.
Featuring manganiyar musicians from the deserts of Rajasthan, the production was born when Abel came across them while looking for folk musicians for a play he was taking to Spain. “When I heard these musicians for the first time, what I experienced was a great grandeur in the music and listening to them repeatedly seduced me into it,” explains Abel. The structure of the 70-minute performance itself reflects this ‘emotional high’ that Abel experienced. “We don’t do song after song, we’ve just taken one – Sufi poet Bulleh Shah’s Alfat In Bin Un Bin – and created a narrative around it from the beginning to the end. The other two are situational songs, which bring in a definite kind of emotion – they come in and go away,” says Abel. “It takes you through an emotional roller coaster ride, and that’s why, in the end, you have so many people crying and saying, ‘Oh my god, what hit me?’”
The set design, consisting of boxes stacked on top of each other, with a musician in each one, and lit up in turn, as the intensity builds, emerged from Abel’s search for visuals that would appropriately convey the music’s grandeur and seductive quality, while highlighting the musicians’ individuality. He stumbled into the answer in an unexpected place – in Amsterdam’s red light district. “After a show, we accidentally strolled into the red light district, this whole street, with multiple windows – it was like one big burlesque show happening over there, and I was amazed by the theatricality of it. This, and the windows of the Hawa Mahal put together, was how we arrived at the concept,” says Abel.
Set to complete 20 years next year, one wonders what about the show has endured the test of time and geography, connecting with audiences. In Bengaluru too, the production has struck a chord, with the first and second shows announced for Saturday at The Prestige Centre for Performing Arts, Konanakunte, selling out in approximately a week, leading to the announcement of a third one on Friday to meet the demand. “Outside the country or inside, most people can’t understand the language (Marwari and Sindhi) and they don’t get the meaning of the songs. But this is what music does to people at an ephemeral level. Because of the arrangement, people experience their emotions in a profound way. In New York, the Lincoln Centre, and here, people come to see it again and again and again,” says Abel, adding, “Of course, now there is also a new generation that hasn’t experienced it, who are interested. It hasn’t gotten old yet!”