Purane Chawal serves a flavourful slice of the previous

Actor-director Sumeet Vyas
| Photograph Credit score: Courtesy: Sumeet FB Web page

Purane Chawal, an idiom for individuals with lived expertise, can also be the title of a two-act play directed by Sumeet Vyas. Tailored from grasp playwright Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys (1972), Purane Chawal is a tragicomedy about two old-time mates and comedian actors, Khushaal Mehendi and Vijay Das, performed by the seasoned Kumud Mishra and Shubhrajyoti Barat. Although the 2 carried out collectively for 42 years, they’ve now fallen aside. Ghanshyam Lalsa, who performs the nephew-turned-manager, tries to fix their strained relationship. Nevertheless it’s once more a play that brings them collectively — in life and on stage.

Sumeet Vyas, of The Everlasting Roommates (2014) and Tripling (2016) fame, directs the story as tailored by Farrukh Seyer and Avinash Gautam. His familiarity with the 2 veteran actors comes by within the play’s design and efficiency. “They’ve identified me since I used to be 17. I’ve grown up watching them carry out and rehearse. Directing them was nothing in need of a theatre workshop for me,” says Sumeet.

Diversifications are tough however Purane Chawal retains the flavour of the unique Neil Simon play and but, breathes a brand new and Indian life into it — as New York turns into Bombay, New Jersey turns into Alibaug and Weekly Selection turns into the favored Indian journal Mayapuri. For a play written over 5 many years in the past, one which has been tailored a number of occasions since, Sumeet admits that “one has to make the script palatable for at present’s viewers…the story of this play for me is friendship. I handled these two characters like a pair, who’ve been with one another for 42 years. From that lens, it should at all times stay related.”

Sumeet Vyas within the net sequence Tripling.
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular Association

Sumeet believes in letting the play evolve on the ground — a technique he follows himself, be it as an actor, a author, or a director. In the long run, the purpose is to create one thing that nods to a easy query that he asks himself: “Would I purchase a ticket and watch this?”

Sumeet has been backstage as a lot as he has been in entrance of it. In theatre or cinema, “all the pieces begins with a script” however there’s something particular about theatre in any case — “that it occurs the place it occurs after which it’s by no means going to occur once more. It’s at all times a unique expertise as a result of it’s alive,” he says. As for his return to “experimental theatre” after a protracted tryst with films and web-series, Sumeet emits nice pleasure and a pleasant optimism: “It pushes you to step out of your consolation zone and discover narratives which can be extra stimulating for the viewers. I’ve actually loved directing performs all my life, however Purane Chawal has been essentially the most rewarding expertise for me.”

From Purane Chawal, that celebrates friendship
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular Association

The play, a D For Drama manufacturing, premiered on the celebrated Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai, final November, the place it has been staged virtually a dozen occasions since. It’s now in part two because the crew brings it to different cities within the nation. Set to carry out in Bengaluru, Pune, Bhubaneswar, and Allahabad, it has already been staged in cities resembling Bareilly, Lucknow, Rewa, Indore, and Delhi.

As for the longer term, Sumeet hopes to see (and perhaps even create) extra up to date writing on stage.