STAGING NOIR

Aisi bhi kya jaldi hai,” sings a woman in director Atul Kumar’s latest play, Detective Nau-Do-Gyarah. Performed in an ersatz bar accompanied by a Russian dancer, the song recalls popular tunes like “Aaiye meharbaan” and “Jata kahaan hai deewaane” from Hindi noir of the 1950s when women used their eyes to seduce heroes and warn them about their enemies. It’s a milieu that Kumar loves, along with Hitchcock thrillers and the hijinks of Chaplin, and he brings all that together in this gangster comedy, which premieres in Mumbai on June 30.

It’s the opening work of Birla’s Aadyam theatre festival, which has a penchant for big stage spectacles. So Kumar had the resources (Rs 28 lakh) for lavish sets, period costumes and even a five-piece jazz band, which created 18 background tracks for the 90-minute play. Even Kumar’s love for graphic novels gets a nod with a projection of a chase sequence.

At a recent rehearsal, Kumar encouraged his eight actors, including Neil Bhoopalam, Gagan Dev Riar and Sukant Goel, to improvise with their lines, tone of delivery and action. Kumar describes his hero, Shekhar (played by Niketan Sharma), as a “noir hero who is bored out of his skull until his decisions lead him into trouble”. There’s romance, suspense and murder.

Detective Nau-Do-Gyarah is the first of four plays that artistic director Shernaz Patel, actor and co-founder of Rage Theatre group, has commissioned for season four of Aadyam. The roster includes two more first-timers: Yuki Elias collaborates with playwright Sneh Sapru and actress Puja Sarup, and Saurabh Shukla writes and directs a romantic comedy about an octogenarian couple. The season wraps with another musical, this one from Rahul da Cunha and Bugs Bhargava Krishna and set in the world of reality TV.