A humorous play starring Tom Alter and Cyrus Dastur takes the conversation between God and man to a bar with an attempt to discover life’s meaning. By Darpan Mago
You are drinking at your regular bar and having a good time when suddenly God comes out of nowhere, takes a seat at your table and starts drinking from your glass. You cannot believe if it is really God sitting besides you and enjoying your regular drink. After a funny discussion and he finally proving himself as God, you get in a conversation and seek answers to all those questions you threw in air hoping that God will respond to them someday. It is a casual yet strikingly insightful conversation where God even justifies the reason for human existence.
DlF Club 5 recently hosted a play When God said Cheers, which is a humorous take on problems of being born as a human and attempts to derive a true meaning and purpose of life. The play stars Tom Alter as God and Cyrus Dastur as a helpless man, with bountiful questions. The play originally written by Jeffery Scott and adapted by Anurag Kashyap, derives inspiration from modern life instances. In this two-person play, God (Tom Alter) and man (Cyrus Dastur) can be seen eating peanuts over a drink and discussing life. Man says that God is responsible for all the problems in life and seeks answers for them. For these questions, God himself is clueless and replies that rather man is responsible for all his acts and after not being able to justify convincingly, he says, “It is one big bloody system that keeps on running by itself.” God further adds that man’s life is purposeless and so is for every other species that exists. On a comical note, there is an octopus, an ant and plethora of other creations but none of them “take this fact as personally as man.” The God of this play is all the more easy and relaxed in his demeanour. He keeps on saying cheers after every sip of drink and doesn’t require veneration. The God is happy even without a respectful treatment, more because nothing will ever bother him as he is already the God.
Taking note of a large number of audience who had come to see the play, some of them were first timers. Plays nowadays are gaining popularity over TV and Bollywood.
Sumit Bhagat, one of the viewers, says, “The plays that are happening now are not for a niche segment. They are more relatable and are coming in a presentable way for a wider section of people to watch, understand and get entertained. “Cyrus Dastur, the director of this play, says that around 2000, they often faced difficulty getting dates from different venues in Mumbai.
“I am talking of the years around 2003, when booking a venue for your play was a difficult task. So, I had a friend who had a cafe in Bandra and I told him to let us perform over there. It was the first-of-its-kind in the country to be shown at a cafe. Initially, I hadn’t secured a regular venue, so we thought of doing it my way. It started off in a small cafe and has been successfully running for nearly 11-12 years now.”
Karan Singh, another viewer, says, “The contemporary plays are less dressy and actors step on stage in their regular attire and perform. They are not about elaborate settings but are a mixture of casual yet intense performances, which are easily understood by everyone.”
As the play ended, the question of life’s meaning was still left unanswered. Tom Alter, who was playing the God, ended by saying that ‘tum iss duniya main akele nahi ho’ (everyone is in the same situation and place like you). Musical performance by Auxilia Sequeira also enthralled the viewers.
photos Sanjeev Kumar