Fun take on the big city blues

‘The Big Fat City’ can be described as a play with elements of satire with a humanistic touch, a dark narrative or even a realist drama that shows the hard edges and grim tragedies of those who live in a city.

The Big Fat City’, written and directed by Mahesh Dattani was staged at Park Hyatt as a part of celebrating Hyatt’s 30 years in India. A couple (Pooja Ruparel and Ivan Rodrigues) get a new apartment on loan in Mumbai. They default on their monthly bank loan repayments for the flat after the husband Murli loses his job. Murli is ravaged by feelings of declining self worth while his wife Niharika is threatened at the prospect of losing her home. Both of them plan a scheme for survival, she arranges a dinner party for her husband’s long lost friend Sailesh (Nasir Khan) who they mistakenly believe, is doing well and can help get them another loan. She ropes in a neighbour, a glamorous TV actress (Achint Kaur) who has her own set of financial troubles and a drunken husband. An aspiring young actress (Sonal Joshi) a paying guest living in Murli’s flat and her possessive boyfriend (Aadar Malik) kill the TV star’s husband accidentally this becomes a cue for a general unraveling of the plot as each character tries to make the best of the situation and make enough money to bail them out of trouble. And what turns out is a rollickingly humourous play that has an underlying theme of what greed can do to people in the big fat city.

While all the actors did a splendid job in bringing their characters to life, Ivan Rodrigues who plays Murli did the best job. Except for minor glitches like, the text projected on the screen (to show the SMSs on the phone) though was a great idea, did not serve the purpose as it was not left long enough to be read; the play was on the whole an engaging one.