The smorgasbord of dishes laid out by Akvarious for Kolkata audiences at The Urban Theatre Project in the last couple of years has proved one thing besides Akvarious’ admirable prolificacy: that Mumbai (and Akvarious) boasts of a battery of bilingual performers, mainly young, whose exceptional acting abilities delight director and spectator alike. If anything, many of the scripts given to them don’t test their talents as much as more layered, complex drama could.
We had conclusive evidence of this from the trio on view recently. What a pleasure to witness in Sissy the iridescent writing of 22-year-old Dhrreti Bhatt, who I hereby certify to reach Himalayan heights of playwriting in quick time! In this one-hour two-hander, a researcher unburdens herself to her campus counsellor (photo), culminating with a twist in the tail. The joys of listening to intelligent dialogue instead of just dumbed-down repartee came alive, as she revealed her convictions about multiverses and existentialist angst (the title misleads us because it actually alludes to Sisyphus).
Bhatt also acted the part, unaffectedly, as well as directed, donning a triple hat that I normally advise against, but she carried off with ease. My only nitpicks: a therapist can’t place himself on his patient’s PhD panel, a doctoral dissertation is a much bulkier tome than the thin file she carried, an incredulity that she had never hinted at her main trouble in any previous sessions, and the surprise end that smells of formula, as if drama must have such a finale. But these don’t undermine the theatrical impact and the calling out of callous counsellors (obtusely portrayed by Akarsh Khurana) in the tradition of Christopher Durang.
In contrast, External Affairs (a deliberate nod to Akvarious’ earlier Internal Affairs by almost the same writer-director team and similar dramatis personae, but not a sequel) also features a therapist, albeit in a supporting role, and delivers scintillating performances upon a text that bubbles on the surface, but lacks depth. Dramatist Bobby Nagra pits two opposites (who attract each other, natch) in a rebound relationship that encounters routine obstacles. Under Adhaar Khurana’s experienced direction, Shweta Tripathi Sharma and Chaitnya Sharma, spouses in real life, spice up the characters of a level-headed woman and an emotional rapper with their chemistry. However, the tag advertising “all the problems that plague the current generation. There’s a reason they got the very last alphabet” grossly generalizes Gen Z, whose empathetic traits don’t warrant such stereotyping.
Finally, Love, Bombs and Apples returns Akvarious to Iraqi-born author Hassan Abdulrazzak, whose powerful debut Baghdad Wedding they had staged in 2011. This time, they selected a set of satirical monologues out of which director Akarsh Khurana picked three, inexplicably omitting the fourth. We heard a British Muslim drawing parallels between a mosque and a mall, where he eyes the Apple of his eye; a Palestinian actor whose lust for an English social worker turns into love; and a Pakistani-born novelist whose manuscript leads to his arrest on suspicion of terrorism. Mantra (alias Puranjeet Dasgupta in Kolkata), revisiting his roots in this city after Piyā Bahrupiyā in 2013, relished depicting the actor as a raunchy extrovert, while Siddharth Kumar played the novelist with internalized abjection. The connecting theme of Islam certainly made it unusual, but the short revue-like format (each piece averaging 20 minutes) left me unsatisfied, awaiting the fourth, the longest and most thoughtful, in which a Jewish New Yorker has a girlfriend who dreams of Holocaust victims marching in solidarity with Palestinians who have lost their land.
7 September 2026