A neo-absurdist vision of love, marriage, the works, Lillete Dubey's new play Love on the Brink reunites two college chums, where else if not on a bridge?
A neo-absurdist vision of "love, marriage, the works," Lillete Dubey's new play Love on the Brink reunites two college chums, where else if not on a bridge? One is Bandy (Sudipto Bandhopadhya), an existentialist intellectual; the other Chops (Pankaj Chopra) a picture of prosperity.
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| Kumud Mishra, Shivani Tanksale and Joy Sengupta teeter on the edge |
Ironically, Chops too is full of frustration, because his wife won't divorce him, so he can marry the woman he loves. Into this hopeless picture appears Chops' wife Amu, a beautiful and overeducated woman, and a triangle of the absurd ensues.
u00a0"Both men are falling apart and it isn't long before who is going to jump is beside the point," says Dubey about her wickedly satirical play adapted from Murray Schisgal's 1964 smug comedy, Luv.
Billed a "delicious spoof on a multitude of matters" by the New York Times, Luv had viewers rolling in their seats with Schisgal's self-absorbed caricatures and incessant collision of clich ufffds such as "Nothing succeeds like success".
Dubey has stayed true to the original -- from the characterisation to the skewed rhythm of speech. Love on the Brink is a refreshing change for the director; she hasn't directed or appeared in a comedy "for a very long time". Its existential absurdist realm is just what the doctor ordered for the 20th year of her company Primetime Theatre. "The more their woes increase, the more we laugh as we recognise our own lives in their wildly funny misadventures," she says.
Love on the Brink premieres tonight at 6.30 pm at Tata Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point, Churchgate. Call 66223737
