It is easy to create a play charged with heavy dialogues and elaborate sets but to craft something simple yet engaging is a task, even more, onerous than one can imagine. Case in point, director Akarsh Khurana’s What Planet Are You On? Revolving around the story of a school-going boy Homi Dastur who has Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), the play, though inspired by a complex subject, seamlessly and convincingly tells a tale so simple. Khurana and his team staged the play at India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Estate on Sunday afternoon at the ongoing IHC Theatre Festival—it concludes on October 2.
Drawing attention to an issue
“My father loved musicals,” exclaims Homi in the beginning of this musical that advances like a song in itself. While Homi is a smart student, his teachers consider him a “trouble” and keep sending him off to the principal’s office everytime Homi says or does something that goes against the conventional school norms. There is also Homi’s doting mother who feels her child “talks before he thinks”. Teachers’ negligence and taunts led Homi to internalise whatever is being said to him and hence steps in a counsellor who helps Homi and his mother understand the problem and the course of action. Talking about this play with The Morning Standard, Khurana shared, “I wanted to attempt something different and this topic is relevant. Audiences are changing, children are changing, children are exposed to so much more these days. I thought maybe this is the time to take the bull by the horns and use the simplicity that we have gotten good at but to address in a way that is accessible.” The later half of the 60-minutes play explores Homi’s evolving relationship with a girl named Nidhi and the former’s own personal tussle with embracing himself.
A jungle gym (dome climber)—that we usually see in playgrounds—is central to the plot and the themes explored. Not only the presence of the climber accentuates the child-like vibe of this play, it also helps separate the ‘inside’ from the ‘outside’. “...Inside being the mind palace; the jungle gym started representing the brain in that sense. What is happening inside the jungle gym is very personal [to Homi] and what happens outside is external,” explained Khurana.
Khurana’s play is high on research and on the top of it is a meticulously-written script. Don’t be surprised when you see Italian artist Leonardo Da Vinci talk in Hindi or watch the great literary figure William Shakespeare sing on the stage—Khurana blends fantasy well with facts. Even when the characters are trying to make you aware about a certain topic related to ADD, it doesn’t seem patronising. To educate an audience without being preachy about a cause is the biggest achievement of the tem, making this What Planet Are You On? well suited not for just children but also adults.