External Affairs

I haven't watched experimental theatre for almost a decade so when Arpita and Saumil Shah invited us for a private viewing of Akvarious Productions' External Affairs featuring Prajakta Koli (yes, the influencer), Taaruk Raina, Abhinav Sharma and Garima Yajnik, I did not want to miss it. So I left my husband home to babysit the six-year-old on a school night and made by way to The Distillery at Alembic City (even after all these years, I keep forgetting the locations of the different places on that campus). We walked into the in-the-round stage (I had never seen The Distillery in an avatar other than that of an art gallery) and took our seats. The play, written by Bobby Nagra, starts with a group session at therapist's (Garima) featuring the influencer who has just broken up with her boyfriend, Insiya (Prajakta), a 'loser-type' musician unable to talk about himself in anything but song and still not over his ex, Arjun (Taaruk) and Eddie (Abhinav), a homosexual who wishes he hadn't come out of the closet . I had expected the wisecracks and one-liners that peppered this comedy that is focused on the interests of Gen Z - social media, wokeness, homosexuality, exes, sex (lots of it and how!), casual flings, relationships, commitments, live-ins, coming outs, single moms, dads who are trying to be cool but aren't, affairs, alcohol, casual references to drugs, Goa, road-trips and music - but what blew me away was the versatility of actor Garima Yajnik, who plays Insiya's software geek best friend, her single mother and Arjun's toxic ex-girlfriend, Nayla. Not a word, expression, breath or even hair out of place! Method acting even while she was in the dark, she lit up the stage every time she took the spotlight. I also loved the way they got the audience involved through the play - referring to cricketer Kiran More's daughter in the audience they improvised with, "Arre fielding toh theek se kar le," (Abhinav) to grabbing a phone from a viewer to take the girl's number, to throwing up questions to the audience during the asides. Some in the audience did feel the 90-minutes were a bit long (when people started looking at their watches and cellphones), a bit Prajakta weaved into her aside very smartly. Baroda does not see much English theatre and adult comedy so bold references to sex did make part of the audience squeamish. The play ended with a standing ovation for the actors. As the audience started leaving for desserts and drinks (soft, dry state) I walked over to Aadhar Khurana, the director, to tell him what a privilege it had been to see something fresh after so long.