Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater

He loves me, he loves me not; he wants me, he wants me not — or maybe, he just wants us to be an ‘open couple’. What on earth does it even mean? The answer to this question is in 71mm’s maiden production. “The Open Couple, which is a story about an ordinary wife named Antonia, who has coped for years with her Casanova husband, who finally succeeds in convincing her that they should be an open couple. The play was written by Dario Fo as an apology to his wife, Franca Rame, for his philandering ways. Franca, perhaps against the wishes of Fo, decided to stage the play along with friends and much of the text had been altered/ added for their improvisations. This hilarious comedy is typical of the biting satire, which Dario Fo is famous for,” explains director Faraz Khan.71mm is a fairly new theatre group and they’re staging a play in Bangalore for the first time. Incidentally, there are neither nervous nor worried about competition. “As a production company in its nascent stage, 71mm has already taken forward its vision of conceptualising happenings that involve an exciting synthesis of the various forms and streams in the performing arts. And with our first theatrical offering — The Open Couple, a mad-cap masquerade — we have already set off waves of anticipation,” says Anuj Gurwara, actor and partner, 71mm. To this Vaishali Bisht, performer and technical director of the play, adds, “Bangalore-based theatre groups have been extremely forthcoming and supportive of our tour. It is with the help of various Bangalore theatre groups/ persons that we have been able to effortlessly arrange the many logistics required for our shows. One of the hallmarks of theatre is the open-hearted collaborative nature of those involved, so there is no question of competition.”And because Bangalore is hungry for good theatre, the group chose to perform here, points out Priyanka Vir, partner, 71mm, “Bangalore’s theatrical activity is one of the reasons we have chosen to stage The Open Couple here. If theatrical activity is high in this city, it means that Bangaloreans are hungry for good theatre. And that’s exactly what we are bringing to them — so we’re not nervous, just very excited. We look forward to entertaining the theatre-literate audiences in the city,” says Priyanka.It’s just a two-member cast performance and Faraz was clear what he wanted from the actors. “It was pretty simple and straightforward. I was looking for performers of very high calibre who would work closely with me on an obscure piece where we mix commedia inspired mask work and oh-so-French physical theatre. The fact that Vaishali would play Antonia was evident from her reading — she had the range, the emotional truth, the technical brilliance and most importantly, the willingness to disagree with me. And with Anuj, he has a brilliant comic timing, the technique, the exaggerated form, heightened emotion, the face — it all just fell into place,” explains Faraz.The Open Couple has been staged in Hyderabad, the group’s hometown, four times already and “The response has been four full houses, despite torrential rain, with audiences offering to stand and watch the shows. The one thing that many of the audience members have shared with us in Hyderabad is that this is a production that one can watch time and again, so we think that Bangalore audience too will take back with them the desire to come back and watch it – one more time,” admits a rather confident Faraz. Be at Opus, Palace Road, 7.30pm onwards, on August 17 and at Jagriti, Varthur, Whitefield, 3pm and 6.30pm onwards, on August 18. For tickets call 9963447673 or log on to www.bookmyshow.com