Anu Vaidyanathan’s ‘Menagerie’ is a theatrical exploration of the endurance required in parenting

Filmmaker, author, tri-athlete and now stand-up comedian, Anu Vaidyanathan has returned to the stage with yet another accolade to her name. Fresh off the success of her globally acclaimed stand-up show BC:AD (Before Children, After Diapers), Anu is set to grace the Edinburg Festival Fringe yet again not only with a 90-minute version of this hilarious piece but also marking her theatre debut with the one-woman production — Menagerie.

“I try to follow my nose. If I have something to say and feel ready enough to say it, then that’s how I sort of decide when the piece is ready. But this year, venturing into theatre was a purposeful step. There are themes around mental health, trauma and grief and keeping them in mind I began penning a comedy piece but the primary job of a comedian is to make you laugh. It’s not to make you cry or gasp, so it was a direct conflict. And theatre felt a little bit easier for me to imagine and put down these dark themes into the frame,” Anu shares.

Menagerie is a storytelling and comedy show that takes audiences on a journey through the various collectables of life. Much like Noah’s Ark, which sought the finest pair of every species, the show sifts through the best moments from different seasons of her life — work, marriage, raising children and the inevitable struggles with dwindling bank accounts and sanity. “The title comes from The Glass Menagerie, a short film I wrote in 2022 and a visit to Africa where we felt closest to our real primal selves and a menagerie means a collection of little animals,” the author begins.

As a South Indian woman married to a North Indian man — her polar opposite in temperament, physique and wisdom — Anu humorously confronts the skewed lessons learned from romantic Bollywood films, painting life as a giant, unavoidable wedgie at the most inopportune moments. “How do you jump out of that burning plane? First, you have to put on your mask and then only you can help others. So that’s basically what the show is about. We are sort of trapped by words or our latest Instagram reels of how life should be. We are overburdened with consumerism and projecting people as families or as cultures. I try to reflect that even in the most nurturing of cultures, there are black holes,” the filmmaker elucidates.

The challenges of modern life, compounded by technology, made this piece inherently theatrical, with pauses as significant as the movements. Through heartfelt storytelling, Anu offers a candid exploration of modern motherhood, migration and intercultural marriage. “Being in a different country, my children don’t have a hundred cousins to sort of fill the void and even your parents or your immediate family is no longer around. The whiffs of nostalgia that we live in, are only good up to a point. After that, you have to develop your own language. You have to develop your compass to navigate your life as it is today,” she elaborates.

The production delves deep into the comedian’s life as a South Indian immigrant who has lost her bearings and language, only to realise the importance of seeking help. Through the lens of her own experiences, Menagerie reflects on the formation of an individual’s value system. “I think in today’s age with all the pressures that we’re living in, trauma and grief are very prevalent. It’s something that everyone is dealing with in different stages of phases or degrees. Dealing with the issues and how we situate ourselves when we are faced with very untoward circumstances is something that magnifies itself when you’re a parent or you’re an immigrant or simply a human,” she reveals.

Her latest work will be staged at the same venue as her debut comedy hour BC:AD (Before Children, After Diapers), back-to-back, at The Patter House in Edinburgh. Speaking about taking both the shows to the festival at once, Anu says “It’s five times the work and 10 times the sanity. I knew the production was shaping up but the problem was that the book contract for BC:AD also sort of developed around that time, which led me to continue touring the comedy piece. Because when you’re publishing a book, you need to keep the show topical,” the artiste concludes.