Review: LAST OVER at Delhi Theatre Festival

Veterans Rakesh Bedi and Ananth Mahdevan lead this well-written Abhishek Patnaik comedy "Last Over", one of the many selected plays put up in the esteemed Delhi Theatre Festival. Since time immemorial cricket has been a preoccupation in Indian movies and theatre and this one joins the tradition. It draws from several desi puns, metaphors and situations to put together a play that discusses the inter-faith marriage of a Pakistani girl and an Indian Punjabi boy. The play is written in a way that neither the marriage nor the religious and political disputes take center stage; what remains vital throughout is an eccentricity that unites all the four characters despite their cultural differences.

The use of foreign land, in this case, London, is a common trope used all across. It becomes a neutral space for the South-Asian Diaspora where every member is struggling for representation and survival, something that binds these characters together. The scenes between the fathers are extremely hysterical as seen in the optimistic audience responses; the bilingualism of the play appeases the urban upper-class audience and maintains relatable desi content.

Among the several funny scenes, what stays in mind is the bar scene with the fathers, a climax of sorts where it is revealed that all the characters are not the pretense they put up. Kazmi Sahab is a perennial liar and Arora Sahab is not the rude brat he has been tainted as. The characters come full circle in their apology to their children right as the match ends, and like the ending, we are left to imagine what country wins and whether or not the parents stick to the promises they make. The play thus, through its dialogue discusses several undercurrent ideas of desi parenting, cross-country rivalry and the consequences of patriarchal setups.

The play is full of several puns and laughter generating punch-lines like the one where Arora Sahab mixes up the Urdu word Barkhast with Barkha Dutt, it creates a subtle tension-free humor between the languages Urdu and Hindi. Sunny(Abhishek Patnaik) and Zubaina(Gunjan Malhotra) are extremely likable younger characters who lay a good foundation for the utter buffoonery of their fathers. All in all, through the employment of good stage apparatus, ample intermediary characters that create a ruckus and a solid script, Suketu Shah has built a hilarious cricket-comedy to watch on a Sunday evening.

To post a comment, you must register and login.