A tall, white cross rests on a sturdy looking pedestal. A large, orange wall looms from behind the structure. To either side are long, white panels dotted with several tiny, fluorescent-coloured squares. A delicately carved bench, chair and table, the kind you’d expect to find in a Parisian café, foreground this colourful and rather cramped cardboard set-up at India Habitat Centre’s Stein Auditorium in New Delhi. It is a balmy September evening and the venue is set to feature a performance of Niccolò Machiavelli’s famed comedy, Mandragola. Presented by the Doon School Old Boys Society (DSOBS) and performed by the alumni of the boys-only Doon School and Welham Girls School (who appear to insist on claiming the metonyms “Doscos” and “Exies”, respectively), the play is directed by Bikram Ghosh, a member of Delhi’s very own Tadpole Repertory. The Tadpole Repertory is, in their own words, “dedicated to presenting original writing and devised performances” that are relevant to modern audiences. Their independent production Taramandal is well-known for having won the MetroPlus Playwright Award 2010.
The programme notes placed on each seat carry a detailed synopsis of the plot. Machiavelli’s 16th-century farce tells the story of how a rich, young Florentine, Callimaco, returns from Paris to win over one of Florence’s most beautiful and virtuous women, Lucrezia—who also happens to be the wife of a foolish old lawyer named Nicia. Ligurio, a cunning marriage broker, helps Callimaco by exploiting Nicia’s fervent longing for an heir; he tells Nicia that the only way for Lucrezia to conceive is for her to drink the aphrodisiac named mandragola but that the first man to sleep with her will die from the effects of the drug. Combined with the persuasive powers of Lucrezia’s unscrupulous mother Sostrata and Lucrezia’s confessor—a corrupt priest named Timotea—the play snowballs into an entertaining albeit slightly disconcerting climax.
Twenty minutes after the scheduled time, the performance is about to begin; Kishore Lahiri, the president of DSOBS, is flustered when he admits that they’re running on “DST”, Delhi Standard Time. Before the performance, he offers a vote of thanks and amusingly refers to it as merely a “presentation”. But as the evening wears on, the word appears more appropriate: rather than an attempt to shape the current face of Indian theatre or to examine Machiavelli’s plays, the evening looks to be an endeavour to convene alumni of the Doon School and Welham Girls School and the people associated with them in order to preserve ties between the institutions.
The space itself is a conventional proscenium arch; like most theatre spaces housed within cultural centres across the country, this auditorium isn’t exclusively a theatre venue—it also hosts films screenings and music concerts. A Victorian aesthetic, the proscenium arch has remained popular across the world through the centuries— from the first Parsi plays performed in India in the mid-19th century to Peter Hall’s famous 1959 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Royal Shakespeare Company—and continues to dominate the architecture of contemporary Indian theatre spaces. The nature of the pros-arch, as it is often referred to, offers limited scope for intimate engagement with the audience, which is why it is pleasantly surprising when Callimaco (essayed thoughtfully by Daleep Singh Akoi) saunters onto the stage and addresses his first lines straight to the audience. Direct addresses are a delicious rarity in a proscenium theatre, and it works—the audience is immediately captivated. When the action stagnates, these direct addresses drive the performance: Callimaco’s wallowing and Sister Timotea’s (charmingly played by Priyanka Singh) cunning monologues to the audience, for example, are delightful.
The actors are an enthusiastic and sincere bunch—not particularly skilled at throwing their voices or realising the comedy inherent in Machiavelli’s lines, they succeed in evoking laughter all the same. Although there are moments of commendable hilarity—Callimaco’s flourish of balderdash, for instance, earns him an immediately star-struck “My God, he’s phenomenal!” from Nicia (played by Sharad Sharma, who is inconsistent but perceptive) who thinks he is spouting Latin, and the reaction of the actors to each other makes the entire farcical sequence playfully riotous—the biggest laugh from the audience is in response to a child’s vocal amusement at seeing a sample of what is meant to be Lucrezia’s urine on stage.
On the whole, the performance fluctuates between insipid line-delivery and occasional bursts of inspired movement. The climax, which is really an anti-climax disguised as one, comprises an inexplicable rush of actions and sudden character transformations—certainly a part of the script—that are in need of a little more breath, time and exploration. The last scene, which brings to light the conclusion of the night’s events, suddenly collapses into a bow with one of the actors still off stage, at which point the audience realises the play has ended.
Certain questions remain—why was the cross casting of the Friar as Sister not explored? Why was the Chorus, which would have made for a terrific direct address, cut out? In spite of these questions, the direction is really what ties this 90-minute “presentation” together with its effortlessly sensitive blocking and smooth scene transitions. Given the time spent in putting together the performance—a mere two months according a Tadpole Repertory member—it is fairly impressive. Momo, as Ghosh is fondly known by his colleagues, comes across as an energetic, focused man who multitasks with ease (while proudly talking about the portable props, he simultaneously helps an actor find her missing script) and speaks passionately about working with the actors. Working with non-actors, he says, requires him to use different methods: he can’t workshop as frequently, and he also finds the space a constraint. “The play,” he says, “is very self-conscious and we played up to that. The plan is ridiculous, but people carry it out.” The actors did play up to the farce rather well. “In the end,” he smiles, “I just wanted my actors to have fun. They were playing to a friendly audience. If they enjoy themselves, the audience will, too.” Of all the adjectives to describe the evening, “fun” would certainly figure.