YOU DON'T WANT TO SOUND STUPID WHEN YOU TALK TO 1 IN 6 PEOPLE DO YOU?

SYNOPSIS:
‘The Abridged History of Modern Day India’ is a look at the history of India from the time the British set foot to the time they left. It examines the treatment of Mother India by the white man and examines the treatment of the Indian Woman by the brown one. It looks at everything in between, in quick time.
Never allowing the audience to merely sit as silent bystanders, the two actors make every use of them to recreate battles, give life to revolts and present the stark reality of divides. Employing mad costume changes, live music, lewd dance, terrible ventriloquism and unprofessional habits on stage, Mohit Gautam and Naren Weiss leave no stone unturned in giving life to a country that gave life to so many.

ABOUT THE PLAY:
‘The Abridged History of Modern Day India’ is a look at the history of India from the time the British set foot to the time they left. It examines the treatment of Mother India by the white man and examines the treatment of the Indian Woman by the brown one. It looks at everything in between, in quick time.
The play, broken into chapters, begins with the British colonization of the country and the rise of the East India Trading Company. It further progresses into the first unified uprising, the rise of the British Raj, the subsequent freedom fighters and the many movements towards independence, and the emergence of Mahatma Gandhi. It finally moves into the Partition/Independence. All of this, in a matter of minutes.
It then looks at ‘free’ India and the politics that govern the nation and its people. It progresses to the perception and treatment of the everyday Indian, in particular the Indian Woman. It poses the harsh reality of what the country is and where it stands in respect to its own potential. It paints the portrait of the beauty that is India, with the colours we often hesitate to use.

Never allowing the audience to merely sit as silent bystanders, the two actors make every use of them to recreate battles, give life to revolts and present the stark reality of divides. Employing mad costume changes, live music, lewd dance, terrible ventriloquism and unprofessional habits on stage, Mohit Gautam and Naren Weiss leave no stone unturned in giving life to a country that gave life to so many.

About Stray Factory Entertainment:

Stray Factory is an award winning entertainment collaborative that recently completed 3 years of successful operations. Stray Factory’s performances and plays have opened to national and international acclaim winning laurels at festivals. Stray Factory’s 10 minute plays have won Awards for Best Play | Best Director | Best

Actress | Best Actor at Short + Sweet festivals across Chennai | Mumbai | Kuala Lumpur | Dubai and have also been performed at Sydney and the Auckland Fringe. Stray factory also performed at the recently concluded Kakiseni festival in Malaysia being the only Indian group invited to perform along with 500 artists across the world.

ABOUT THE ACTORS:

Mohit Gautam (born 24 July, 1990) was born on Long Island, New York City; lived briefly in Delhi, and then returned to New York City. He is currently a student at Brooklyn College, in the process of getting his M.F.A. in Acting.

He graduated from Stony Brook University in New York where his credits include Laertes in Hamlet; an original production of Paul Robeson called Robeson, an original production discussing America’s racism called Perfect Union, and a devisedwork called The Environments Project. He has been involved with many readings and projects outside of school.

His professional credits include What Killed Marcelo Lucero directed by Margarita Espada and a reading at the Fire This Time Festival. He never imagined that he would one day be part of such a project. He is excited and most humbly grateful.

Naren Weiss (born 15 March, 1991) was born in Houston, grew up in San Antonio and was raised in Chennai. Over the years in India, he has been a part of over 15 full length productions with troupes well regarded in the city, apart from many other smaller theatrical shows and sketch comedy performances.

Weiss has also hosted several shows for the English television channel, Channel UFX, and has worked in feature films. He is best known for his portrayal of Osama bin Laden in Kamal Hassan’s multilingual film on terrorism, Vishwaroopam. He has worked as a singer, musician, artist, athlete and model; and has appeared on the cover of several magazines such as India Today, as well as in many other campaigns, in the capacity of the last mentioned.
He is currently pursuing his Master of Fine Arts in Acting at Brooklyn College, and is set to graduate in 2015.

About the Playwright- Naren Weiss:

Naren Weiss began his playwriting career in Chennai in 2010, quite by accident. Because he never imagined he would have a career in the same, several of his early scripts have since been lost; having been tossed aside immediately after performances.

Over the years, he has made a name for himself with his plays, very often returning to plays deeply rooted in South Indian culture. His work has played across the Indian subcontinent as well as in Singapore. With this play, he makes his North American debut as playwright.
Apart from working as a playwright, Weiss has worked (in the realm of writing) as a lyricist, screenwriter, music journalist (Sony Music) and copywriter (Ogilvy and Mather).

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION:
Reason behind Naren’s “Abridged History of Modern India”:
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 favourite 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?

EXPECTATIONS 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.

Venue:
THE COMPLEX, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90038.
Date & Time:
June 13th, 8.15 pm
June 14th, 7.45 pm
June 20th, 8.15 pm
June 21st, 9.45 pm
June 22nd, 6.15 pm
Duration:50 minutes
Tickets:
Ticket Partners:
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/ Strayfactory | www.strayfactory.com