Life is a smorgasbord served with the right mix for us to endure and enjoy. But Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah chose to dish out humour in a larger portion in his theatrical smorgasbord of Riding Madly Off In All Directions, adaptations of Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock’s works through, at Ductac, Mall of The Emirates in Dubai, on Friday.
The presentation — for it is not a play that we got used to watching — is a collection of five themes dealing with diverse subjects with an undercurrent of humour.
True to its title, Riding Madly takes you on a ride in several directions looking minutely at such mundane things as somebody asking the other for a matchstick to light his cigar, to finding faults (read violence) with children’s stories, and playing spoilsport with impish delight at a magic show, all with no relation to each other.
Shah, who says he was captivated by Leacock’s writings, brings his whole family onto the stage for this ensemble.
The ‘family show’ introduces us to Shah’s children, Vivaan, Heeba and Imad. His wife Ratna Pathak Shah is an actor of repute herself both on the silver screen and TV and she excels on stage, too.
Their performances were stupefying, especially in the humorous look at math problems where the a, b and c jump to life. Ever wondered why ‘a’ always does a task in half the time that ‘b’ takes to do it and four times faster than ‘c’? Math has always dealt unjustly with b and c. These characters take on different names — x,y,z — in algebra — and graduate to a more complex alpha, beta and gamma in The Human Element in Mathematics.
The presentation of a, b and c as characters in shadows on the projection screen on stage is a novel idea and Shah has to be praised for this experiment.
In The Conjurer’s Revenge a smart alec pays a heavy price for seeing through the magician’s sleeve for every trick that he plays. His ego is left smashed just like the expensive watch the conjurer borrows and pounds as part of the magic show.
In Burning A Matchstick we get to see a typically Chaplin-esque theatrics when the character looks through his pockets and every fold of his waistcoat only to fish out a toothpick, disappointing the man waiting to get his cigar lit.
The Man In Asbestos, enacted by Shah, takes the cake. It may not fall under the genre of humour, but it looks at life in a different perspective. Fast forward to circa 3000 when society as we know is no more and men wear clothes made of asbestos and are reduced to a robot-like status. Life is more like exhibits living in a museum. Shah gives us a glimpse of future shock where humans cease to be humans, literally. Thank God, he realises, he has only dreamt it.
The last act, a 40-minute part soliloquy, part dialogue captivated the audience. Unlike facing the camera, where an artist gets several chances for a perfect shot, Shah has accomplished it flawlessly with a range of emotions though the character in dreary grey clothes looks bereft of any feelings.
Thankfully what Riding Madly Off In All Directions lacks is slapstick comedy. It doesn’t throw you into splits but elicits a few chuckles at the occasional brilliant moments.
The props were minimum and the costumes not too extravagant.
