More than just laughs: This gripping drama has more to offer
As the play, A Small Family Business, opens, there is chaos everywhere. It happens to be a party scene, with 12 of the 13 actors on stage. People talk to each other. Family dynamics and each of the characters’ personalities are established right away. There’s tension between the protagonist Samson Sequeira and his younger daughter Natasha; his sister-in-law Luvleen divulges to his wife Maya that she is sick of her husband Anil’s experiments in the kitchen; and his brother Emmanuel admits to him that his foreign wife Anita does not find him exciting anymore.
Written by award-winning British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, adapted by Akvarious Productions’ Akarsh Khurana and directed by Adhaar Khurana, the play recently had its premiere for its second run at the NCPA’s Experimental Theatre, starring Vivek Madan, Shikha Talsania and Tahira Nath among others. The party in the opening scene is being thrown for Samson, the Goan Christian son-in-law of the Punjabi Ahuja family, to celebrate his induction into the family enterprise.
The happy occasion is marred after a detective arrives with a warning about corruption by the in-laws in their furniture business. The upright Samson is flung into a dilemma. Grim the plot may be, but there are enough thrills and hilarious moments to keep the audience engaged: From Natasha being caught shoplifting to Samson discovering that not only his brother-in-law Anil but also his brother Emmanuel and son-in-law Yash, are involved in the unethical practices, there is one twist after another. Most of the funny moments are courtesy of the honest Samson, who finds himself a fish out of water in this dance of corruption.
When the play was staged last year, the clarity regarding the themes was getting a bit lost in its length, believes Akarsh. Some scenes that were there in the first run, including one between Samson’s wife Maya and his sister-in-law Anita where they discuss wealth and dresses, were not adding any value to the plot, he felt and so, edited them out in the second run. Also, staging the play at the smaller Experimental Theatre compared to the Tata Theatre, where it was shown last year, worked in its favour because the intimacy between the actors and audience was up close. “I wanted to have another go at the script in order to make some themes stand out more clearly. One of the major changes we made was shortening the play by about 15 minutes,” explains Akarsh, who thinks he has achieved a far-focused script.
From sensing the unsaid marital problems brewing between Emmanuel and his wife Anita to spotting Natasha spiking her drink during the house party, the audience, Akarsh felt, picked up on nuances that were probably not so pronounced the last time. As for the premise, he wished to stress Samson’s personal journey, like him telling his father-in-law that he would take care of the problems showed that he genuinely cared about him, endearing him to the audience.
“These things were getting a bit diluted in the length,” says Akarsh. The original play was set in the Margaret Thatcher era. Adapting it to a contemporary Delhi setting required changes, including doing away with some scenes about trade union conflicts. A line from Samson to his brother-in-law Anil—who fancies himself as a chef and wants to open a restaurant in Goa—that got the loudest laugh was about there being too many restaurants in Goa and that too, owned by Delhiites.
Though a comedy, it was important for the makers to connect to the audience in a way that the words lingered longer than the laughs. After all, laugh-out-loud moments can be introspective too.