Bangalore is teeming with youngsters who work in the BPO and the IT Industries. They are uprooted from the protection of their native cocoons and very often, upon landing in Bangalore, they feel overwhelmed by the city and its culture. As they tread in new social circles - sometimes with caution, but mostly with a marked irreverence and indifference to accepted norms in a quest to experiment, explore and give vent to their dormant desires- they tend to get carried away.
Especially in the sphere of relationships, the lack of anchor in a new place coupled with a quick-paced, brutal and demanding schedule can be challenging. The manner in which two young professionals - Megha and Shankar - confront relationships in their lives is what the play is all about.
Ram Ganesh Kamatham whose script for Project S.T.R.I.P I absolutely loved is the director and script writer for 'Dancing on glass'. Glass is a fragile material and dancing on it (to literally interpret the title) requires some deft balancing and positioning to avoid hurting oneself and so is the case with managing relationships. The extent of give and take required, the understanding demanded and the expectations (implicit) make for a confounding combination that can easily take a toll. One has to factor in the problem of identities as well. Young as these professionals are, they are simultaneously trying to figure out where they truly belong. The title can hardly get any better!
The play had the audience roaring to the humorous dialogues right from the beginning. The two actors - Abhishek Majumdar and Meghana Mundku - playing Shankar and Megha respectively had a lot of soliloquies to execute. My guess is that Ram did not intend to convey any message through the script, rather the intention must have been to capture the drifting lives of the characters without offering any judgment.
There was the "cool" language of the splitsvilla or Roadies kind and the deliberately thrown in long dialogues recounting weird dreams which appeared affected. Here again, I would be doing an injustice if I say some youngsters aren't guilty of affectations of this variety. Indeed this worked to the play's favor because the audience could see glimpses of themselves in Shankar and Megha's behavior.
Megha did well as the pretty BPO girl who is tired of answering boring and dumb questions. The way she said "ayo paapa" had me in splits! Her soliloquies were better than her exchanges with Shankar. Abhishek was the underdog whom the audience wanted to score. He was excellent in sequences warranting histrionics while OK in the other sections. If I have to single out a single excellent scene, I would go for the poetic imagination of Shankar - he imagines a 3 AM walk where he comes across a speeding vehicle and wonders whom the driver wants to impress when nobody is around to see! The ending with a "Life moves on" drift was apt. Overall, it was a decent outing made better by the audience and the company of friends! It had nothing great to offer but for the impressive entertainment value.
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