"A RE-EDUCATION ABOUT INDIA THROUGH COMEDY"

The Abridged History of Modern Day India

Why did you decide to write this piece?

Having written for Stray Factory for years now, I have a good sense of the type of theatre they look to produce. In particular, the concept of taking local content to global platforms is one that I, personally, buy into without a moment’s hesitation.

When they asked if I would write a piece, several thoughts came up but the one that stuck longest was the concept of giving western audiences a look at our past, our history and our culture. After entering into further discussions with Mohit, he spoke of how important a subject India in itself was and is.

The West, very often, has stereotypes and fixed thoughts of what India is and, even though these thoughts may be well-informed, they are not the same as what we Indians see, feel and experience on a day to day basis.

The truth is, India is a beautiful example of a continuous juxtaposition of life in all its glorious gorgeousness and base existence in all its filthy, disgusting truth. We see, daily, how messed up our country is; and yet we love it each day with a stronger passion than the last.

Mohit and I felt that we needed to bring this sense of an India that many foreigners either see too much of or don’t see enough of, to life. We needed to present a balance that people could understand and see in all of its truthfulness. Primarily, because that’s a universal thought, but for us it is rooted in something we are passionate about.

We felt that comedy was a powerful way to do that. Comedy as a means to achieve a laugh is one thing, but we were and are hoping to use comedy as a means to give people something to take with them. To open up eyes by opening up their mind initially, and finally placing a thought or an idea within the open mind. Comedy was the perfect means with which to open audiences up to actually becoming receptive to the harder, heavier messages we have lying underneath our piece.

We would hesitate to call what we are doing sheer comedy but, in terms of a genre, it falls entirely into that category. In our initial brainstorming sessions, the thought was to create a sped-up history lesson from our favorite professor, with the same professor cracked up on way too much energy. Physical, powerful, loud, in your face and probably having dragged you onto the stage; it’s the history of modern day India in fifty minutes. Which means, it’s going to have to be full speed ahead.

Why did we produce this piece?

Mathivanan Rajendran: Our aim over the last 2 years has been to produce ‘Glocal’ content. There are so many stories waiting to be told from our own lives and our own history in India. By ensuring our work is rooted we are able to perform with a great deal of honesty when we travel. There has been an increased interest in Indian Culture over the past few years, however there is an opportunity to present our culture – our modern culture – in a way no one has ever experienced. We hope that the production creates an opportunity for dialogue and provides the necessary excitement a fringe show demands.

What are you expecting from the fringe festival?

Most importantly, we’re looking to find a receptive audience. Los Angeles is a great place for theatre and it’s always nice to find open audiences and great content. Both of us (Mohit and Naren), living in New York now, are spoilt for choice in that we have a quality buffet from which we may pick and choose sumptuous theatre on a daily basis. Putting out our own dish in a market such as Los Angeles is both deeply humbling as well as very frightening.

Apart from the normal worries of doing a piece justice, Fringe Festivals are always up in the air regarding reach, how many people will even see what we are offering and how many more will actually be interested enough to stay with us on our journey.

Bearing all this in mind, we’re heading into the Festival ready for anything. It’s going to be a journey that we ourselves are happy enough to go on. Anything could happen while we’re there but we know that the lives we manage to encounter on the way will have changed even minutely after our interaction there. And that, to us, is deeply, deeply exciting.