Rebel production for the young and Brecht-less

Kaminey's surprise package Chandan Roy Sanyal's Chugaddham Sym-phoney that premieres this week will change the way you look at music and words, dreams and reality, or punishment and pleasure

Kaminey's surprise package Chandan Roy Sanyal's Chugaddham Sym-phoney that premieres this week will change the way you look at music and words, dreams and reality, or punishment and pleasure

Two criminals and a prostitute on the run decide to create a city where no one works, where sin is in, cash is king, love is always on sale, and anything goes. It has a justice system in which a murderer can buy his way to freedom, but inability to pay a bill results in conviction and a death sentence. This is the premise of Chandan Roy Sanyal's Chugaddham Sym-phoney which premieres this Thursday at Sathaye College.

Sanyal is being hailed as the surprise package of upcoming Vishal Bhardwaj thriller Kaminey. Co-star and Taare Zameen Par brainchild Amole Gupte calls him "the one to look out for". But the theatre prodigy wears his film du00e9butant cap lightly. Chandan has a demeanour that spells intelligent calm. He is just as excited discussing rocker Jim Morrison's Alabama as he is talking about his meaty film debut in the Shahid Kapur-starrer. "I play an eccentric, madcap guy who goes by the name of Mikhail," he says. Originally from Bengal, Chandan has trained under veteran Habib Tanvir before he worked with Q Theatre Productions, acted in Alyque Padamsee plays, and formed Proscenium Theatre for which he directed Vijay Tendulkar's Sakharam Binder.

The "youth rebel production", as Chandan calls it, Chugaddham Sym-phoney is an adaptation of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by librettist-dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill. "I fell in love with the story last November at a workshop in Ottawa while touring with Tim Supple's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Dramatising it has been on my mind ever since," he recalls. So, when he returned to India, he teamed up with NSD alumnus and translator Vivek Mishra while shooting for Kaminey.

u00a0The cast of Chugaddham Sym-phoney at a rehearsal this week; (below) Chandan Roy Sanyal. Pics/Pradeep Dhivar

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This truly Indian spectacle is a picture of biting wit and polarity in everything, from the title to the words and music, which Chandan himself composed "through improvisations with the cast of 26 actors" that includes Madhuri Bhatia and Umesh Jagtap. The music is a blend of contemporary rock, jazz, dandiya, melody and indigenous sounds, "modified from the original score to make the performance accessible". A truly pan-India production, it has dialogues in Hindi, English, Marathi and Gujarati, no less.

At: The play will be staged today and tomorrow at 7 pm at Sathaye College, Dixit Road, Vile Parle (E).
Call: 9923752511 for tickets