BENGALURU: Delhi-based veteran theatre practitioner Aamir Raza Husain has always believed in having a robust script, an authentic cast and grandiose sets. It’s no surprise that for his upcoming production, Goodness Gracious Me, he is coming down with three trucks full of lightings and set requirements.
“A great set with an authentic cast underlines the performance of actors. The hero of the play is the script. Many times, minimalism is used as an excuse for mediocrity. Of course, it could also be due to lack of finances. But the audience for theatre is universal. And most people who watch theatre are elitist – although I don’t like the word. Many of them come up and say that they’ve watched a play in London, and something they’ve seen here is ‘rubbish’. I’ve been striving to change things around. We can’t get away not having international quality although the finance available is stringent,” he says.
Over the last six-eight weeks, Husain has been working along with his team of actors on the production which will be staged in 10 cities over the next several months. Bengaluru is the third city that the play will be performed at.
A fun-filled comedy, Goodness Gracious Me is about a doctor at the peak of his career who discovers he has fathered an illegitimate child. With his career on the line, the doctor tries to obfuscate facts and deflect attention which leads to rapid evolutions in the storyline. Does the doctor get away with his deceptions?
Meanwhile, it’s a big day for the hospital as the minister of health is visiting to participate in a seminar. The cash strapped hospital administration is hoping for a heavy grant to enable them to buy new machines and pay salaries.
The governing board average age 80, close ranks and with stiff upper lip decide to present a picture of quiet efficiency. All would be well soon. But nobody had accounted for Nurse Tate and her illegitimate son. Orgies in the mortuary, drunken matrons, patients rising from the dead, unbalanced punks and neurotic dogs and hilarity and humour in a roller coaster of hysteria are what you can expect from this play.
While many theatre groups have been mushrooming in the city over the last couple of years, Husain points out that Bengaluru has always had a tradition of theatre. “In fact, back in the day, the city had one of the best performing space – Chowdiah Memorial Hall – which had great acoustics, a green room and a huge seating capacity. That’s not the case nowadays with the newer auditoria that have sprung up. Besides luxurious seating, acoustics don’t work, greenrooms and backstage are little holes,” Husain says.
(Goodness Gracious Me is an initiative of WelcomTheatre under the responsible luxury aegis of ITC Gardenia. It will be staged at the hotel on August 23)