Unfaithfully Yours is a comedy that touches upon spousal, familial and social issues — from woman empowerment to male impotence — in a light-hearted but heartfelt manner.
It is the story of a young couple, Preet (Mona Singh) and Akash (Rohit Roy), who meet at a wedding and hook up. The next morning they both confess they are married, to Harpreet and Radhika respectively, and have three children each.
Though they really have no complaints with their spouses, both know that somehow what they share goes beyond a one-night stand. We watch them in conflict not with their spouses or each other or the world to continue their illicit once-a-year arrangement, but with themselves, vacillating between guilt to seek personal gratification and allowing a bond that they know is growing stronger by the year.
Even though there are only two characters on stage in this Raell Padamsee-directed play, with each scene — set in the same Goa hotel room on the same date every year over 24 years — we see not only them grow older and wiser but their spouses and children evolve, too.
Akash and Preet share not just personal apprehensions and joy regarding each other but also what they feel for their respective families. They may be consenting adults seeking physical, emotional and mental pleasure in each other but they are tightly connected to their families and each other’s. So much so that when Radhika dies, Preet confesses she feels as if she’s lost her best friend.
At the same time, their individual differences are highlighted. While on the one hand, we see Preet blossom from a smart but simple homemaker into a successful businesswoman who is happy being the breadwinner of her family and accepting her husband’s lack of ambition, Akash remains steadfast as a loving husband and father. They even handle the guilt of their affair differently. While Preet seems unapologetic, Akash vocalises his doubts.
And as Roy told Gulf News tabloid! before the staging of the play, by the end of it, you are rooting for them to stay together.
The onstage chemistry between Singh and Roy, who are well-known Indian television artists, is very apparent and is probably the reason why you want Preet and Akash to work it out.
The dialogues — albeit PG16 — keep the audience in splits. The play progresses at a steady pace even though it could have become repetitive given the same setting in each scene.
