In the drama of life, all the world’s a stage

“Dramatics Anonymous? Sounds like some sort of a help group,” I comment. With a burst of laughter preceding her reply, Sharanya Ramprakash of Dramanon agrees,“Yes, we’re a bunch of people who are hopelessly addicted to theatre.”  

Having staged a string of plays in the last three years, Dramanon finally deemed it was time to pull out a script that had been shelved for a while. Deepanjan Dey rationalises the hold-up, “We heard the story in 2006, but felt like we were not ready for something as quirky and non-linear as this. We wanted a tad bit more experience behind us before we picked up the story again.” But how did the bunch get hold of a script called [SIC]?

Ramprakash narrates the tale. “A friend of ours from the US sends us plays that she finds interesting. And she insisted that this piece by Melissa James Gibson was a fabulous story. We couldn’t find it online and she actually scanned 204 pages and sent us jpeg files of every single page. It took us an entire day to download the pages,” recounts Ramprakash of the acquisition. Adding immediately, “But we always knew we had to do it.”

As gathered from conversation with the actors, [SIC] is a quirky, over-toned depiction of three young urban people who happen to be neighbours and are fiercely ambitious. But quite pointlessly. They think they are getting somewhere in life, but in reality they are only delusional. The actors explain their characters so one can decipher what all the drama is really about. 

Sharanya Ramprakash, 27, introduces Babette, a struggling writer who is one of the trio in denial. “Babette is constantly busy. Her life is packed -selling her book, borrowing money, scribbling names of people who might help her, editing etc. But the real irony is that she is going nowhere.” Although the characters are hugely exaggerated, Ramprakash owns up that she does identify with Babette.

Deepanjan Dey, at 25 says he is nothing like Theo, the second of the urban eccentrics. “Theo is a music composer for an amusement park. He takes his job very seriously and genuinely believes that it’s the best thing that has happened to him. He has a sense of pride that he knows more about music than others. Denial is at its peak in him as in the rest of the characters.”

22-year-old Nakul Bhalla is Frank, a queer person whose sole dream is to be an auctioneer. Bhalla describes his role:“Frank is most comfortable with himself. He is trying to come to terms with having been dumped by his boyfriend Larry. He believes he has a great future as an auctioneer. In reality things are not working out, he even fails an auctioneering exam, yet, he is in denial.”

Bhalla agrees that the play is a humorous commentary on the lives of the urban young, “We are overeducated and underemployed,” he quips. Ramprakash contributes her bit:“There are sparks of introspection through the play, but there’s no dramatic realisation of the futility of it all. That’s why the play ends with the soundtrack still going on. To signify that life keeps moving.”