About The Event
INT. Aditya Birla Performing Arts Academy brings to you ARRE O HENRY
Written by Gulzar
(Adaptation of O Henry Stories for stage)
Produced by Lubna Salim
Designed and Directed by Salim Arif
If you’ve read any of the short stories written by O Henry, the American writer, you’ll be aware of his signature style — witty tales of regular people with surprising and twisted endings. Giving it an Indian touch, lyricist and maestro poet Gulzar has adapted four of the writer’s lesser-known stories for the stage, titled Shaadi Kara Lo, Nuskha, Bal Bal Bache and Madam in the play Arre O Henry.
The first story, Shaadi Kara Lo is a story about two out-of-work room mates in Mumbai, who want to make quick money and plan to start a fake matrimony agency with the help of a beautiful widow who happens to be their late friend’s wife. They charge an entrance fee for every applicant with a promise to get him married to this wealthy, good looking widow, and the end is funny as well as surprising.
The story ‘Nuskha’ is about a strict retired military officer and his lovely daughter who is in love with a with a civilian theatre actor. Her father is opposed to this match, as is their paying guest who is also secretly in love with the officer’s daughter. She plans to elope with him, much to the dismay of her strict father. To win the fair lady’s hand a battle of wits takes place between the two suitors.
Followed by ‘Bal Bal Bache’ which is a hilarious account of A Bald Man and a Barber. It tells the story of how tables are turned, when this greedy barber, who tries to con a customer with a magical recipe to cure baldness, gets conned himself. It has the barber palming off spurious hair vitalizers to hopeful bald men! How does one of the barber’s victims get even with him?
The play, Madam, has a female protagonist, who pretends to be a celebrity, a rich lady with delicate grace and refined tastes, though she’s merely a maid. This frustrated maid to an actress, apes her mistress - wearing her dresses, shoes and mannerisms to perfection. Is she caught at her act of deception? Watch the play to find out.
All the stories in the play are light-hearted, comic incidences, aimed at giving a bird’s-eye view of the silly conundrums of life. The stories in the play as scripted by Gulzar Saab aren’t too serious or deep, they are witty, interesting and quite enjoyable with simplicity as its basic charm. Very much like fables with morals in the end, there’s humour in the stories, that is clean and funny in most parts.
Arre O’ Henry is a short, fun and quick stage watch to indulge in.
