Kavita Kaushik in a Pajama Party without pajamas

Pajama Party is a quaint, albeit oddball, title for a play about women empowerment. It was premièred at the thoroughly renovated, grand, regal Royal Opera House, in South Mumbai, on Saturday, 18 May 2019. And I had the privilege of being offered a seat in the first row, which I prudently turned down, to opt for a more vantage point in the third row. The play is in Hinglish and marks the stage debut of TV actresses Kavita Kaushik (CID, FIR, Nach Baliye, Fakebook with Kavita, Savdhaan India) and Kamya Panjabi (Comedy Nights Bachao, Shakti--Astitva Ke Ehsaas Ki, Tu Aashqui, Bigg Boss). Kavita has done half-a-dozen films too.

Writer-director-designer Atul Satya Koushik had staged Raavan Ki Ramayan at Rang Mandir, exactly a year ago, in which Puneet Issar played the role of the demon-deity, and dominated the play like a titan. By comparison, or even without comparison, for a present-day women-centric play cannot be easily compared with a tale from the Raamayan, Pajama Party is tame, to put it mildly. It begins before a planned pajama party and ends before the said party is held, which is a royal (Opera House) let-down.

Before

The play is about Darsha, Aisha, Kalyani and Urvi, four friends in Mumbai, each of whom is standing at a crucial juncture of her life, looking for great expectations. They gather for a Pajama Party at Aisha’s place, who lives there with her boy-friend Abhay. The night progresses, with music, fun, jokes, and food, but what happens post that changes their lives forever. But instead of succumbing to it they decide to stand against it and find a maverick way to deal with this sudden change in their lives. Note: it is clear from their costumes that none of them has gotten into a pair of pajamas yet.

After

Kalyani’s boy-friend borrows her for a few hours, to attend another party, but she takes a long time returning. And when she does, she is in a mess, mentally. After constant probing by the four who have been waiting for her, she reveals that she has been raped by her boy-friend and molested by his friends. After some debating about lodging and FIR (Kavita must be giggling internally), they decide to teach the s-o-a-b a lesson that he will never forget. How? See picture above.

Atul’s script holds interest, since it is unpredictable, right till the climax. There is not much of intricate direction, and all the actors appear thorough professionals. As the play progresses, it tries to become clever, and the ending seems unconvincing in terms of factual analysis and probability. Everything happens so smoothly, and so easily. The boy-friend shooting the video is at an awkward angle, though the only other possibility would have been to put him below the stage, in the theatre. And pray, why not? Both in the first half and the second, there are scenes that suggest that it is time now for the intermission or the end, respectively, but the predicted breaks come a little later. One scene that needs to be well-rehearsed and ironed out is the last scene in the advocate’s office, especially, the inter-play between the props and the actors. A couple of places when lines were forgotten or overlapped were covered with characteristic élan.

Among the actors, Kavita (Aisha) is the pick of the lot, offering reactions to conversations, even when the dialogue does not directly affect her. In the beginning and in the end, she gives us a couple of samples of the Haryanvi dialect which was her forte in the long-running police-station comedy, FIR. She cannot match that scale yet, but just give her time. And what has happened to her legs? She seemed to have shapely and curvy legs in FIR, which are now so thin that the micro shorts she wears seem a wrong choice. Add to that the fact that she is really long-legged and has long, fuzzy hair. Then, for reasons unknown, she puts on calf-stockings and keeps adjusting one of them.

Well-known television actress Kamya Panjabi (Darsha) is an unknown entity for me, since I haven’t seen her on TV, where, it is mentioned in some places, that she often plays the vamp. That considered, there is nothing vampish about her role here. By contrast, she shows fleshy legs, and stage-presence, but her dialogue delivery is monotonous. Shakti Singh as Kalyani provides the biggest twist in the tale, which also needed performance to match. Instead, after fretting and fuming for a long time, she blurts out the truth in an unconvincing manner. Maybe the director is preparing you for another twist, which is on its way.

Urvi is played by Deepali Garg, a Barry John student, who is easy and comfortable, without being distinguished or memorable. Her’s is a relatively poorly written part. One of the three male actors in the play, Suneel Kumar Palwal is cast as Raghu Sampat, the bad boy. Having completed a decade in films and TV, he is a real senior and a real pro. Pay attention to his dialogue delivery, flow, and the clear enunciation of the last three syllables of each sentence that he speaks. Most actors either swallow these syllables, or utter them so softly that we cannot hear them at all. The actor portraying Aisha’s boy-friend and videographer Raghu is Arjun Singh, perhaps the least defined character. He gets just two scenes to make it count, one with his girl-friend and a whistle, and another with a water bottle. And he does make them count. As film producer-director Asif  Khan, Kalyan Chaudhary is more over the top than required.

Design and lighting are a bit over-done, with the spots employed predictably. Music by Anik Sharma is average, without adding to or complementing the proceedings. Produced by The Films and Theatre Society, with co-producers Ishan Yadav and Aditi Chauhan, Pajama Party is an above average play. It does not, however, merit admission rates of Rs. 500-3,000. Yes, there are a few known actors who might have charged high fees, but they do not do anything tantalizing, titillating or terrific.