I first knew about evam couple of years back through an article in The Week. I was impressed by the article, the name stuck and I watched out for performances by evam in Bangalore (days, weeks after the play, unfortunately). So, I never had a chance to enjoy one of their plays until this Saturday. Five Point Someone at Ranga Shankara.
Now, I haven’t read the book. In fact, it is the only book that I have left incomplete for no reason at all. I started reading it on the last train journey back from my college, and somehow could not and at that point did not want to get back to it, for the nostalgia, regret that it evoked.
I jumped up in joy when I saw a post on my college groups about the play, thanked all the gods that for once I was checking the groups before the play, frantically blocked a ticket online. Oh what joy! And then for the next two days, I went about publicizing the group, the play.
The day arrived. Close to opening time, Ranga Shankara was as always bustling with people at Sankars, in the canteen, at the evam stalls. That place is heaven for any theatre lover. At 3:30 PM after a Evam’s Sunil Vishnu came up on stage, talked about how over four years they had done 14 plays; and like for their 50th, 100th and 150th shows, the 200th show was at their favorite venue Ranga Shankara.
Being familiar with the settings, main characters in the book, one wondered how the team would compress it into a two hour play replete with the required props. The stage had a cot, a table, a chair, and a stage with steps – which morphed into class room, the bench at Sasi’s stall, the Insti terrace, dorm room, hostel, etc. The characters – Ryan, Hari, Alok, the author, Neha, Prof. Veera, rest of the profs were all excellent. Be it Alok who radiated tension, his frantic urgency in taking notes, his general Muggu antics or Hari, stuck between his two best friends, trying so hard to be someone like Ryan and Ryan frustrated with the IIT system, “infectious, Hari is an example of the infection”, as Alok puts it. The author Hari played by a different person, full of the regret, nostalgia, dry observations that one tends to make on looking back. The part when the professor and the students face the audience – and the three main characters respond as though the professor was facing them – was nice too.
The play on the whole was a laugh riot. I have seen a couple of plays at the venue before, but none had evoked applause from the audience for just about every two dialogues that were uttered. One of my personal favorites (and the one which won the biggest cheer –- from the Bangalore aka ‘engineer’ audience -- during the play) was when the prof reprimands the students at the viva voce saying something to the effect of – “the standard of the IITs is going down day by day. What are you? Commerce students?!” I loved all of Alok’s reactions too. Him being the nervous wreck and so the most emotive of the three was responsible for a king’s share of the audience reactions.
Pink Floyd ‘backgrounded’, and laid foot work many a time too. I can’t recollect the lyrics of the song that was played before Sunil came up on stage. Think as hard as I might and all I can come up with is “all things bright and beautiful.”
Playing a best selling novel has a great advantage of pulling in crowds (not that evam needs to rely on that for a full house! :)) and for precisely the same reason raises expectations, most of the audience would be familiar with the plot, have their own visualizations from the book reading experience. Evam did not disappoint, they exceeded expectations; they’ve left me and many others look out for their next performance at our favorite Ranga Shankara.
