Rebel Talk

We are back from hibernation, not from the “state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate”, which would be too literal for us Rebellions, won’t it? Well, we were not hibernating actually, just that we were not on blogs, what with everyone in the team on a spouse finding spree and you should understand how it works once you are “hooked”. Anyways, we are back and back with a bang!!!

We Tangoed this Sunday ,November 20^th, one of our most loved productions from the past- “Two to Tango”. We had 3 shows lined up and there were 2 plays in a show, the first being “Playwrights for Dummies” directed by Bharath and the other one was “Alice in Blunderland” with Ashwin at the helm. Before we get on with the actual event details, a little peek into the journey to the D-Day.

Long long ago ..that is 2 months ago, two of the Rebellions-Ash,Bharath sat in the local TASMAC bar (that’s all theatre enthusiasts in the city can afford) exchanging stories dripping with pain and agony from their respective lives, professional and personal(from when did professionals have a personal life eh..).

That’s when a lightning stuck somewhere in the interiors of their brains and they yelled – “Two to Tango” in unison. They knew it was time; it was time to get to work and to go on stage.

Ahem ahem!!! That was not pure unadulterated nonsense exactly. Actually, it was nonsense but then sense is not something the rebellious should be associated with. So, we began elaborate preparations pulling out the scripts from the attic, dusting them out and cleaning them with phenyl due to possible contaminations. We counted the Rebellions who were present in Chennai rather than being exported to Phoren nations by their respective IT organizations. So there we were, the usual suspects – Bharath, Ashwin, Vinodh, Suraj , Preethika and Mala.

That meant that we needed 3 women for “Alice…”. So, we auditioned at least 300 of them (including mosquitoes, local laundry ladies, few maamis from appalam depots and a some more…) before zeroing on 3 wonderfully talented ladies – Keerthi, Samraggi  and Anu, well they did not fall into any of the categories mentioned above.

Vinodh, one of the co-founders decided that he wanted to reinvent the famed role of the suicidal maniac from “Playwright…” because he wanted to experiment and was sure he can enact it more realistically than the first time, as he is married now. Well actually, he did not have any choice per se.

So, our rehearsals began; a few at Ash’s home and the rest at Vidyasagar, our usual abode. Can’t help but feel nostalgic about those sessions replete with Filter kaapis at Ash’s home and lunch at the Krishna café while we rehearsed at Vidyasagar. (Oh yeah, forgot to tell, for those who don’t know this Vidya Sagar is a school for Spastic children and we would like to thank the School for their support in all our productions). The first few rehearsals helped us bond with each other and get to know the roles well.

Humor and fun have been the watchwords in all our productions and this play was no different. While “Playwright for Dummies” tries to get into the mind of  a Playwright about how she tries to weave her thoughts and emotions into a play through its characters, on the other hand “Alice in Blunderland” was a comic take at the plight of an employee at Peabody & Co and the lengths he goes to please his boss. Preethika played the Playwright, while Bharath and Vinodh played her characters in the former, while in the latter, Ashwin played the employee, Suraj played his boss Mr. Peabody with Mala as the know-it-all Mrs. Peabody . Keerthi, Sam, Anu and Preethika  were cast as “The Alices”- I, II, III, IV ..ah imagine the pride in their faces when mentioned as Alice the second(or third)..Surely Queen Victoria the second would have paled in comparison. Then of course we had the Rebelz cameo-man –Sandeep, playing Alastair Campball.

So that was it, our team practiced on weekends. Ashwin had to struggle a bit getting everyone of us at the venue for the practice but then, he is getting used to it now. The second play (i.e. Alice…) required quite a bit of attention as we had some newcomers. The more we practiced, the more comfortable we became with our respective roles. Ashwin broke the play into 4 stages and whenever we got some time, we would practice the entire play. On the other hand Bharath worked on planning the “Playwright..” play. Bharath, Preetika and Vinodh are seasoned(and marinated) performers now, so they did not have to practice much to get their roles right for the first play.

The last 2-3 weekends saw some hectic activity as we wrapped up the rehearsals. Sandeep showed great valiance in coming to practice sessions in spite of a very bad throat infection. He would cough for 5 mins and then start with his dialogues. His eyes would have gone red by then. We could see how much he was struggling but, he made sure that it did not impact his character. We did a full rehearsal on the last weekend before the play. We had some of our in-house critics and a journalist from Times of India for the rehearsal. The rehearsal really helped us get the complete picture of what we were going to put up on the D-Day. It was a bit daunting as it was the first time we were doing the entire production but it was fun. We tried to make sure that it was as close as possible to the D-Day performance.

Costume selection was the next big thing. The second play “Alice..” needed more attention in this respect as we were trying to portray a very formal setting. Mala, Sam, Anu and Keerthi came up with many options for their costumes. We had a bit of brainstorming (ignoring the ‘girls and dresses phew..’ comments of the gentlemen) to do before zeroing in on the perfect costume.

All this while, our Behind-the-scenes team was silently working to get all the support we needed. Radhika took care of the all the PR Work and also worked with the directors for her second duty-Sound engineer. Vipin was meticulously noting down the light details. Arun has been our creative head and this time too, he came up with the designs for our posters and advertisements.

So, with all the preparations done, we were geared up for the D-Day. It was a strange mix of anxiety and excitement. The Chennai weather was surprisingly pleasant that day. It was sunny but not as hot as it usually is. We reached the venue well ahead by about 11 a.m. we had 3 shows lined up at 2:30, 5 and 7:30. The ambience at Alliance is simply amazing. Housed in midst of a canopy of trees, the edifice is extremely pleasing. The auditorium has also been refurbished wonderfully. The seats have been done up very well. So are the acoustics, it’ difficult to miss any sound in the auditorium. Then, our production team set about their work of setting up the stage, the lights and sounds. While on the other hand, the actors started getting ready with their costumes and make-up. We had Limelite to help us with the make-up. Time just flies on the D-Day. The whole place was bustling with activity and befor ewe could realize it was show time. We barely managed to check our Lights and Sounds Cues.

The first show had a relatively lower turnout; probably, Sunday afternoons are best reserved for a siesta for the Chennai Junta. The tension was writ large over our faces. It was the first show of the day and it really mattered that we do well. Mala was frantic as she paced up and down going through her lines. Sandeep seemed to still struggle with his persistent cough and was trying everything to kepp it away be it drinking hot water, some yoga poses and what not. Preetika, Bharath and Vinodh went on stage for the first play “Playwright for Dummies” and we were on “Play” mode. We could hear the audience enjoying pretty soon, especially with Bharath and Preetika’s exchanges. That set the tone for the rest of the show.

Pretty soon it was time for the second play “Alice for Blunderland”. We began with a bang with some interesting quips from Alice1 going down well with the audience. The most loved part was the Mr & Mrs.Peabody exchanges and ofcourse the soup Simon was getting into. The guffaws and chuckles continued for some more time…. And then enter the Alastair campball cameo, the audience doubled up their laughing efforts for the rollicking campball and his adventures with the speeding cricket ball. The cat-fights between the alices perked up the audiences to more laughs and the show ended with the expected high. We got a warm reception from the audience at the end of the show. The Second and third shows saw bigger turnouts and that only helped us raise the performance levels by a few notches. Not to mention the behind-the-scenes effort, Arun was more or less our backstage Rajnikanth(super man is so passé),he moved dining table, sofas, wine bottle and other props..all within the 5mins break between two plays and in complete darkness(now even rajnikanth shud take a hike right?)..  Our sound engineering was going smooth and Vipin slowly started experimenting with lights..and to really delightful effects. The actors too started peaking during the shows. We modulated and improvised on stage as we knew where to expect the laughs and where to add spirit, with our previous show experiences. It was a tremendously satisfying evening and we are sure it was the same for the audience too.

We would like to thank the audience who took their time off for the shows, our partners and sponsors and hope to bring more laughs & fun to you in our own rebellious style. Looking forward to starting the next year with a Big Bang!!! And yeah we look forward to see you there too!!!!