Has our cell phone fixation given birth to an online personality that's different from our real self? A new play set in an upper-class SoBo home explores this through the lives of seven young professionals
Sankalp Joshi, Naik. Priyanka Arya and Gaurav Sharma enact a scene from Charades. Pics/Pradeep Dhivar
Have you been at your amiable best while texting someone, with the smile drawn across your face disappearing the instant you put the phone down? Or, has a verbal duel with a friend on WhatsApp gone so out of hand that it makes you ache for the days you hugged it out soon after a tiff? Would you rather that your phone conks out than land unlocked in the hands of your girlfriend? The constant urge to check our phones aside, there are far more insidious - and sinister - ways in which technology can hold us captive.
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Charades, a new play directed by Swagata Naik, attempts to bring this face of technological dependence to life through the stories of seven friends - all young and successful professionals, played by a Mumbai-based cast - who meet over dinner at a house party in a Malabar Hill apartment.
Saloni Khanna (left) and Swagata Naik during rehearsal
"Most people I know have a phone personality and one that corresponds to who they actually are. Because we use our phones to communicate so much more than meeting people in person, it's much easier to maintain a charade today. Plus, the emoticons and the mobile lingo have had an impact on the language of everyday use, too," explains Naik, who also plays an ambitious lawyer in the production, about its title. "Phones offer an easy escape by letting you go behind the screen and filtering your emotions," adds co-director Nishank Verma, pointing to the fact that whether we realise it or not, many of us carry the burden of the secrets our phones hold within them.
The script, Naik shares, is an improvised version of the original. "When my co-writer Saloni Khanna and I shared the script with other actors, everyone had an opinion vis-à-vis the cell phone. So, we thought it would be a good idea to include those personal touches to the script," she reveals.
The directors also took a conscious decision about the age group of the characters, pointing out that there is a lot of content for those between 19 and 25. "But the early thirties is the time when we figure out who we really are," says Verma.
The play also explores the themes of modern gender roles, class- and profession-related stereotypes, insecurities in urban relationships, and sexual fluidity. "When we portray gritty characters and realistic plots on stage, we tend to look at set-ups one wouldn't exactly call affluent. We also often assume that a family residing in a sea-facing SoBo flat is a happy, shiny one that has it all. But the issues we are tackling in the play are class-agnostic, and theatre must reflect all kinds of reality," says Naik, while Verma is quick to add, "In fact, money is not always a privilege. It can work against you, too."
Naik points out that education and privilege cannot always guard one against harbouring a stereotype. "As the dinner conversation among the friends - who are lawyers, architects, restaurateurs, and a former supermodel - starts to unravel, the thought behind a seemingly innocuous comment becomes more apparent. And the thread that runs through it all is the parallel digital lives they lead," she says.
ON: July 21 and 22, 8 pm; July 27 to 29, 8 pm
AT: Rangasharda Auditorium, Bandra West.
LOG ON TO: bookmyshow.com
ENTRY: Rs 499 onwards
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