Mrs. Krishnan herself is the reason to attend this party
Poor Mrs. Krishnan doesn’t realize she’s throwing a party for us at the back of her convenience store. James, her mischievous college-student boarder, gets us seated and arranges for us to surprise Mrs. Krishnan when she comes in. She’s surprised, but not pleased.
So begins Mrs. Krishnan’s Party, a semi-improvised comic celebration of the southern Indian harvest festival of Onam, brought to our shores by New Zealand’s Indian Ink Theatre Company.
The show is slight but good-natured and openhearted. There’s food and dance, a slim narrative, some delicious matchmaking, and one completely charming performance.
The story, such as it is, unfolds over the 75-minute evening mostly offstage. Since
the death of her husband (whose ashes will play an interesting role), Mrs. Krishnan has worked hard to make a good life for her adult son Apu, who has promised to visit her tonight for Onam. Now she has decided to sell the shop and return to India. The prospective buyers are coming tomorrow so she’s not happy that we’re making a mess of the place.
But New Zealander James (Justin Rogers), a party boy who doubles as DJ Jimmy J, insists on jollying her up by having us all celebrate Onam together. “Awesome!”
He dresses as King Mahabali, whose annual return from the underworld is a key element of the Hindu holiday. James gives us balloons to blow up, decorative scarves and flower garlands to wear, and leads us briefly in a disco-style dance.
We’ll learn that both he and Mrs. Krishnan have reason to be unhappy, but all that will be overcome in the joyousness of Onam, a celebration of transformation and rebirth. Mrs. Krishnan, the delightful Kalyani Nagarajan, is the catalyst who really gets the party going.
For the feast, she cooks daal for us with a little help from audience members who open cans and stir ingredients. (If you stay afterwards, you get to eat it.) The rich smell of the cooking — turmeric, cumin, garam masala, mmmm — is part of the fun.
But the real magic is made by very funny Nagarajan with her killer smile and sly interactions with the audience. She singles out a handful of people and keeps returning to them in a series of sweet comic riffs. Quick to improvise hilarious throwaway comments, she gets the audience willingly involved. As in the Arts Club’s Blind Date, no one is made to feel foolish.
Even this short evening has its longueurs: too much time spent on cellphones and a little too much of James’ cheerleading. But when Mrs. K is doing her thing, it all cooks.
Nagarajan’s narrative of demon King Mahabali and the god Vishnu is spellbinding. And her powerful tabletop Indian dance to end the show puts an exclamation mark on an enjoyable theatrical party.