Bollywood moves to centre stage
Live production captures all the infectious fun of the popular movies,
(out of 4) Written by Toby Gough. Directed by Shruti Merchant. Until Sunday at Bluma Appel Theatre, 27 Front St. E. stlc.com, 416-366-7723
CARLY MAGA
As a live production that encapsulates the appeal of the Bollywood film genre, “Taj Express” delivers exactly that: thrilling dancing and infectious music, to be sure, but the numbers are strung together with a paperthin plot and the emotional weight of a feather.
But Bollywood is the world’s largest film industry for a reason; it has a formula that works, particularly when it’s as selfaware of its flaws as “Taj Express” is.
Originally created in Mumbai, “Taj Express” was evidently conceived as a cultural emissary of sorts, a production to preach the glory of the genre to international audiences (it toured the U.K. before its current jaunt on this side of the pond).
As its musical backbone, “Taj Express” celebrates the “Mozart of Madras,” A.R. Rahman, the much-lauded composer of films like Deepa Mehta’s “Water,” and Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” and “Slumdog Millionaire.” “Taj Express” unleashes the crowd-pleasing “Jai Ho” in only the second number.
The musical’s hero is a young film composer named Shankar (Ninad Samaddar) determined to follow in the footsteps of his idol Rahman, to become the world’s greatest Bollywood composer.
After finding success with a few jingles, he gets his big break from a movie producer named Raj Pakora (“Taj Express” is just as fond of puns as it is of rain-soaked meet-cutes and twist endings) to score the next greatest love story.
In it, a famous actress named Kareena Kaboom (a play on real actress Kareena Kapoor, played by Tanvi Patil) escapes the shallow glamour of her career and is romanced by a goodnatured social worker named Arjun (Rajitdev Easwardas), who takes her into the “real India.”
Pakora haphazardly introduces a villain on a whim, but that doesn’t stop Kareena and Arjun from falling in love and fulfilling their destiny, even though he likes poetry and she likes gossip, and he watches the History Channel and she watches “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”
(“Taj Express” does not poke fun at its own reinforcement of gendered stereotypes as it does its rote plot points.)
The main attractions, and I mean that literally, are the visually stunning song and dance numbers, with musical direction by Abhijit Vaghani and choreography directed by Vaibhavi Merchant.
The numbers are performed by an impossibly beautiful and agile cast of 26 dancers in glittering costumes (by Bipin Tanna) under lights bright enough to make you see stars to music played by a live trio of electric guitar (Arjun Dhanraj), percussion (Prathamesh Kandalkar) and flute (Avadhoot Phadke).
To match Rahman’s mixture of Indian music with other genres like hip hop and techno, the choreography draws from Latin and hip-hop dance, and a wide range of geographic styles within India from the North’s bhangra and dandiya to the South’s bharatanatyam.
But “Taj Express” is unabashedly contemporary in its musical choices, which include Akon’s “Chammak Challo” and Simmba’s recent remake of “Aankh Maarey.”
It’s easy to see “Taj Express” positioning itself as the definition of modern Bollywood for international audiences, which also includes strong Hindu imagery and symbolism, with songs dedicated to the god Ganesha, the remover of obstacles; the Destroyer Shiva and Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge.
Notably missing are influences from Rahman’s own Muslim religion, which may be read as a deliberate omission.
But who has time to think about the implications of politics, or even reality, with a spectacle like this?
Carly Maga is a Toronto-based theatre critic and a freelance contributor for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @RadioMaga
Bollywood is the world’s largest film industry for a reason; it has a formula that works