Drawing inspiration from Alan Ball’s 1993 play Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, five years ago, Akvarious Productions staged a much-loved theatrical homage titled Dekh Behen. Set against the backdrop of a grand Delhi wedding and in a single room, the play unfolds mere hours before the bridesmaids are set to perform their rehearsed sangeet choreography. As the five bridesmaids convene, the stage becomes a canvas for gossip, shared meals, drinks and banter about their matching outfits. However, we later discover that their common disdain for the bride (Rima Gupta) is not the only thread that binds them together. Half-a-decade after the fateful night that Rima almost got married, it’s now former bridesmaid Kanupriya’s turn to have her dream wedding. And the ladies, who are now older, but not necessarily wiser, are back to see this event through.
Returning with the same creative team, writers Dilshad Edibam Khurana and Tahira Nath Krishnan; and directors Prerna Chawla and Shikha Talsania, the highly anticipated sequel of Dekh Behen here serves as another testament to the complexities of relationships between daughters, girlfriends, mothers, sisters and wives, as they smoothly navigate through the challenges that a big fat Indian wedding throws at them.“We thought writing the sequel would be easier than the first time because the characters were already etched out and we knew the setting we wanted to go with. But considering how loved the first part is, it felt quite intimidating to try and meet that bar. Once we got over that fear, however, we stuck to our format of just going with the flow and keeping the conversations as real as possible. While some of them have matured, some still seem to have issues from way back,” shares Dilshad Edibam.
Titled Dekh Behen Part Two, the play returns promising audiences a riotous blend of laughter, camaraderie and poignant moments between the same characters but with a couple of new ones thrown in. They’re now all five years older and the sequel focuses on what their friendship might have gone through in the meanwhile and what they individually might have dealt with, including the pandemic. The cast for the second part features the makers Shikha Tal-sania, Prerna Chawla, Dilshad Edibam Khurana, Tahira Nath Krishnan, besides Preetika Chawla and Lisha Bajaj. “They are all at another wedding, as bridesmaids, so the setting is similar. In the first part, we spend a lot more time getting to know the characters — their opinions, their backgrounds, their shared history, their relationships with each other and their bond with the bride — an exploration that leads us to one big conflict at the end of the play. The big difference in the second part, we already know the characters but we’re exploring their growth in the five years that have lapsed,” reveals director, Shikha Talsania. With conflicts and individual baggage from each one’s past thriving amongst the characters, will the sisterhood prove its dependability, integrity and support for each other or will their commitment to having a good time at the wedding break all hell loose — remain as the core essence, similar to the prequel.
While Parth Varshney creates a beautiful set that promises to transport the audience straight to a hotel room in Jaipur, Pallavi Patel designs the costumes, which is the most important element in Dekh Behen as this time around, the outfits represent Kanupriya’s vision for her bridesmaids. “Dekh Behen was a moment in time between old friends that rekindled their bonds. The best responses were that people felt they knew someone exactly like the characters they saw on stage and that this gang of girls existed in pockets everywhere. So when the play staged its 100th show, the thought that was niggling at us was how the characters would’ve grown through this time as well. Would the gang still be that close? And that’s how Part Two happened,” co-writer Tahira Nath concludes.
INR 500. November 19, 3.30 pm & 7.30 pm. At Ranga Shankara, JP Nagar.
srushti@newindianexpress.com