Akvarious’ new production, Excess Estrogen, comprises seven ten-minute sketches about women written within the group, directed collectively and enacted exclusively by women. The form of serious playlets presented entertainingly harks back to Pinter, whose revue sketches on one bill in 1959 reinvented the French genre of the revue but without song and dance. English theatre in India caught on early this century, Rage’s One on One setting the template, albeit wildly uneven since composed by diverse hands at different times. Then commercial producers like Paritosh Painter and Manhar Gadhia cashed in on the all-women craze with Selfie and 7×3=21 respectively, though not strictly revues.
The five-member ensemble that came to The Urban Theatre Project, of Dilshad Edibam, Lisha Bajaj, Preetika Chawla, Prerna Chawla and Shikha Talsania, brings to this concept an infectious effervescence and immaculate timing of lines and gestures, just falling short of star rating on account of its one-hour brevity. I kept thinking, if only they could sustain this level for 90 minutes, it could become “Excellent Estrogen” instead of “Expended Estrogen” (and by no means Excessive).
The content takes time to warm up, Prerna Chawla’s curtain-raiser a rather apologetic explanation of the title. Conspicuous consumption forms a recurrent theme: the language- and generation-gap between mother and daughter shopping for jewellery in Tahira Nath’s “Apple”, genuine vs fake fashion in “Handbag” (mostly written by Akarsh Khurana, founder of Akvarious) and beauty treatment in Lisha Bajaj’s “Soni”. Old friendships come second, Khurana’s experienced hand providing a double romantic twist in “Anything for You”, whereas Shikha Talsania’s “Evolution” evokes simple nostalgia for what friends meant. Khurana puts the icing on the cake in “We’re Here to Help”, where American social workers offer to help a rustic Punjabi, their mutual faux pas bilingually covered up by the interpreter (photo, at TUTP).
Returning home to Kolkata, Ruhani Singh makes a promising solo debut in The Creative Arts’ Home in a Suitcase. Like its source, her film thesis project “Documents Please” done during her theatre degree in the US, it resembles an installation, but performed live with a narrative based on her own life moving between three continents. It should resonate with many Indians who share similar stories of shuttling internationally for education and employment, all the while seeking that elusive idea of home and identity. Ruhani’s question, “Is home a destination, a memory, or something you carry”, should not require one answer; as we old folks know, home encompasses all three.
She acts with emotional intimacy and sincerity as she unpacks herself (literally: photo), perpetually in a transit limbo, though some sequences need development; for example, the questionnaires that audience members had to fill up and submit to the “immigration authorities” eventually led nowhere. Ramanjit Kaur directs with her USP of impressionistic scenes and images, applying techniques she herself learnt from her teacher, Neelam Man Singh Chowdhry: offering food to the viewers as an act of communion, creating poetic visuals like an umbrella of roses. However, some of these we can anticipate due to overuse, and the cinematographic input didn’t add substance. Ruhani should keep in mind Peter Brook’s immortal directive, “theatre lives by surprise”, and work towards an independent style.
16 August 2025