My Heart Goes Thadak Thadak
Shaan Kesha & Mustaq Missouri
Even before the arrival of mockbuster film production company and distributor The Asylum, some of the most successful films in cinematic history had their niche-market counterparts. For The Matrix it was The Thirteenth Floor, for Aladdin it was The Thief and the Cobbler, and for Sholay, India’s highest grossing and often considered best film, it is the fictional Dust of the Delhi Plains. Blending Bollywood fact and fiction, writer and director Ahi Karunaharan takes Auckland audiences back nearly 40 years, to when the portmanteau originated and the classic era of Indian cinema bloomed, with an endearing and hilarious end to Silo Theatre’s 2019 season.
Legendary director Rakesh Ramsey has passed, but that won’t stop producer and friend Manjit from completing the competing western. He’s brought in Ramsey’s children, polar opposites Kamala and Roshan, played by Sanaya Doctor (making her professional theatre debut) and Mayen Mehta respectively. Mehta is a joy to watch, because he’s clearly doing what he loves. Allowing himself to fall completely into the circumstances of the world, every look and gesture, however hysterically grand or intimately minute, telling us something about him as a character. As the sycophantic Shankar and ruminating Ranimkumari, Shaan Kesha and Rashmi Pilapitiya provide plenty of humour while establishing their characters, which also pays off later. Unfortunately, the first act, which consists of much exposition, does suffer from a lack of diction, and the notorious Kiwi mid vowels often sneak through.
Mayen Mehta
With a Brechtian fourth-wall break that compliments Daniel Williams impeccably detailed film-stage set, Manjit, played with a beautiful balance of charm, humour, and anxiety by Mustaq Missouri, draws us into the changing world to which he is so desperately holding on. Lighting by Jennifer Lal aides this transition, as we’re drawn into the more intimate naturalistic moments of the play from the otherwise workers wash, and as with any great film, the music, designed by Leon Radojkovic and performed by Radojkovic and Finn Scholes, underscores the mood and articulates the action with an authentic western twang and bass-centric major/minor shifts.
Film sets are notorious tinderboxes. Time is money. Emotions run high. And there’s far too much coffee. It’s a great setting for drama. So why does My Heart Goes Thadak Thadak have so little of it? Death is an excellent inciting incident, and supports the theme of change in the play, but this change comes too easily, and the conflict necessary to overcome feels conceded to rather than fought through, such as the reconciliation between Kamala and Roshan. At times, there are foreshadowings and hints towards hidden lies that bubble under the surface, teasing a tension that could derail everything, but they evaporate all too quickly, as if remnants from earlier drafts.
Mustaq Missouri & Shaan Kesha
The result is that as much as we like each character, and we absolutely do, we don’t feel terribly invested in them, because they’re not complicated with the foibles of being human. This could be the result of a nostalgic lens through which Karunaharan has written the script, or simply an intention of the work regarding the joy in celebrating both Indian cinema and culture (although the final number needs at least four or five times the amount of people). Either way, the lack of dramaturgical depth from Sophie Roberts is too safe for the play to resonate beyond these top layers. There’s nothing wrong with a feel-good piece, but if the opportunity to reign chaos (especially with the potential of Willaims’ set) and tear your audience apart before showering them with glitter is so close yet so far, what’s left feels superficial.
Karunaharan is a sought-after and award-winning practitioner, and for good reason. There are elements of My Heart Goes Thadak Thadak, and his previous works, that are pure theatre – magical, dangerous, and cathartic, but they are too far and few between to coalesce into something greater than the sum of their parts. The rise of South East Asian work in the Auckland theatre scene over the past few years has been genuinely exciting, and produced some incredibly joyous theatrical experiences. It’s also proven, once again, how important representation is, with particular productions selling out before they even open thanks to communities who would otherwise not attend Basement or Q Theatre. It makes sense that it’s celebratory. Positive. But there is something under the skin of Karunaharan’s writing that hints at more, and I can’t wait to see what that is.