Club Desire – Play directed by Sunil Shanbag
Group – Arpana / National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai
Venue: Kamani Auditorium
Date: 12th February, 2015

Thanks to NSD and their BHARAT RANG MAHOTSAV,  Dilliwallahs get to see some great groups and their plays from other parts of India and abroad.

“Club Desire” from Mumbai based group Arpana is also one of the better plays that we have seen of late. It’s a musical, set in a bar called Club Desire. It’s about a bar singer who’s a free soul and her lover who is trying to dabble his love life and an ailing mother while fighting his own demons and insecurities.

The play evokes and raises many questions like “if expecting physical fidelity in current day and age is asking for too much?” or “is it bad to be possessive about someone you love? … Where do you draw a line?” or  “Why You are at the receiving end if you are more in love than the other person in a couple”

It’s an interesting play woven with many a songs. The protagonist Chahat played by Palomi Ghosh  is an amazing singer and she performed several numbers on stage with a band. “Heart is a verb and it hurts” and “Catastrophe” stayed with us for a long time after the play.

Apart from the songs, some parts of the play were outstanding. The portion where during a verbal dual it comes out why the guy is so into books… why words are so important to him… people fill their voids with shopping and food and what not but then there are some who fill it with their obsession for books and literature… was quite intense – relatable and got us thinking.

The play can use some editing though. A couple of songs and some scenes could easily be taken out. Unlike a musical, here the songs didn’t take the story forward. The play takes a pause for the song and then resumes. The music mix by the DJ was also very long.

Talking of DJs, the play, in a very subtle way, tries to establish DJ-ing as a form of art too. We like that.

Apart from the slightly long duration and an abrupt ending this play mostly worked for us. We enjoyed the songs, the performances of the lead actors and the catchy dialogues of this modern play. Director Sunil Shanbag has done a good job and we wish to see more of his work in future.