8 april-we went to see a play

Friday, after a lovely day at work, Joanna and I decided to go see a play at Rangashankara, a theatre in JP Nagar.

This theatre puts on a play every single day at prices intended to be afforable to a wider public than just Bengaluru's cultural elite. They were performing The 39 Steps, an Alfred Hitchcock farce where four actors perform in multiple roles, switching rapidly from one to the next over the course of the acts.

The only showing we could make was one at 7:30 PM, and then of course the usual nighttime travel concerns were raised. It looked as though we wouldn't be able to go, but we managed to get Shruthi on board and once she invited Atul as well, it was no longer as dangerous! Off we sped in a tiny auto to Ranga Shankara. It is a beautiful venue in a really lively part of Bangalore.

A wedding or some similarly festive function was going on across the street and the entire block was full of lights, the sound of fireworks, and happy people milling about. Tickets were 200 Rs a piece, the equivalent of roughly 5 dollars. It was such an entertaining production!

The stage was minimalist, and actors played a lot with the concept of being consciously in a production (they would show the audience props and stage set ups...in one instance, a character is trying to get through a window represented by a square wooden frame. He can't get through because it is obviously hard to climb through a frame held by another person four feet in the air, so the person holding the frame turned it and slipped it over his head where he stood. This sort of conscious demonstration of the simultaneous existence of actor and character added to the comedy, at least in my opinion).

Many of the characters were British, or French or some other sort of European. Played by Indian actors, the accents were initially indecipherable to Jo and I, used to a more conventional 'British' or 'French' accent. We were used to them by the end of the play, however.

Post-production the actors introduced themselves. This was their first time performing The 39 Steps and they welcomed any feedback audience members should have. I loved that part, it was such a great open approach to theater and a way to acknowledge the importance of the audience.

We came home utterly satisfied and slept a little later than we had intended, excited to depart for Mysore in the morning!