Actor Purab Kohli talks to Divya Kaushik about switching five to six characters in Atul Kumar’s play Trivial Disasters, which is a compilation of nine vignettes
These stories are neither shocking nor common. They are just absurd. They are about situations and people we may encounter in our day-to-day life but often ignore. There is a man who is unable to complete his sentences when he wants to propose to his girlfriend, a talk show interview with an accomplished serial killer, a poet who is invited by the city municipal board to help compose road safety slogans, a man who insists that his broken kettle is under the warranty period, a son who wants to reveal something important to his parents, a wife who wants to negotiate with the kidnappers of her husband and a young man who wants to confess in church but has nothing to confess. Short stories about these people and incidents make up Trivial Disasters, a play directed by Atul Kumar. It brings out nine stories based on different situations in life. Four actors switch characters to bring alive these stories on stage. They are Kalki Koechlin, Cyrus Sahukar, Richa Chaddha and Purab Kohli. The play opened in Bengaluru recently and will be travelling to 10 cities, including Delhi, till September.
After being part of the dance reality show on TV, Purab is foraying in theatre with this play. Since each character has to play five to six characters on stage, Purab will be seen as a nervous lover and also as a 10-year-old boy. “It is a dark, contrasting play. The situations that we have chosen might appear to be humorous but as the tales progress one would notice that they end up in something which you would not have imagined in the beginning. These are really trivial tales of our times. Some of them will leave you with a sort of uneasy laughter. It brings out the hidden facts and meanings in the most common things in life,” explains Purab. He adds that there could not have been a better play than this and a better director than Atul Kumar for his first theatre experience. He says, “Atul is a tough taskmaster and he settles for nothing but perfection. So to match up his standard is a challenge but when you see the end result you realise that the hard work that he demands is very much needed for his plays.”
Purab, who has worked in films like Rock On, Jal and I Am, has always opted for diverse roles on screen but acting in theatre is a different experience. “The major challenge is to sustain the height of performance. Since in Trivial Disasters I am playing different characters and switching roles, I have to meet certain standards. The audience are watching you as a character and not an actor so your performance should be convincing enough to make them believe in the character. In terms of acting, it was a very good learning experience,” he says.
Purab keeps trying his hands at different things, hosting, dancing and of course acting, to explore his capabilities as an artiste. He says that he still has a lot to put on screen. But theatre is just one of the things that happened amidst many projects. In future, he will be back to doing films. He says, “I would want to do more theatre but I would not have enough time to devote to it. I was offered many plays and I often said no because I don’t take up anything until I feel I will be able to give my hundred per cent to it.” The actor is gearing up for his next releases, one of them is Tere Aane Se.