Dundee Rep
3 stars
As the global village gets smaller, so the comedic appeal of Moliere
grows more universal. We've known this in Scotland for years, ever
since Liz Lochhead ripped into Tartuffe in the 1980s. More
recently, poet Roger McGough put a Scouse spin on the same. Now
Scots-Asian comic writer Hardeep Singh Kohl and director Jatinda Verma
have transposed Patricia Dreyfuss' translation of the French farceur's
study of stinginess to a contemporary cartoon India.
This lends a pertinence to the tale of Harjinder's thwarted scheme to
buy himself a marriage on the cheap, both in its depiction of austerity
culture, and of a society where arranged marriages are still
prevalent. This makes for a far brighter affair than such observations
might imply, as both Harjinder's son Kishore and daughter Dimple
attempt to put love before money.
While there are some vivid stylings in Verma's youthful-looking
production, particularly in Antony Bunsee's depiction of a decrepit
Harjinder, it takes a real poet to make such a yarn fly, and references
to Slumdog Millionaire and Bollywood aren't quite enough to move things
beyond the superficial. There is fun to be had, however, with Krupa
Pattani's cheeky maid, and with Caroline Kilpatrick's posh English
go-betweeen Frosine, a woman so obsessed with the exotic allure of
Indian spirituality that her "kundalinis are kinetic."
The best thing by far about this show is the live three-piece band led
by musical director and keyboardist Danyal Dhondy, and featuring
compositions by percussionist Hassan Mohgyedddin and singer Sohini
Alam. With the cast lip-synching to Alam's vocalisations, the trio fuse
low-key Indo-jazz with a music hall brio that puts real spark into a
lovely but at times flat affair.
The Herald, March 1st 2013
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