There was a lamp on stage…a bulb in a cane basket sort of shade. It kept flickering and it took all of Rahul Ghosh’s wits to enter everytime and light it up as Rehan in the play. If Rehan did that repeatedly with the lamp, Mayura Balasubramanyam did it to the play as an effervescent Mandy. Everytime the play threatened to slip out of hand, Mayura entered and brought the performance back in line. As Rahul Ghosh admitted when I spoke to him, she was like an Energy Booster given in several doses.

That’s not to say the others were bad or inadequate. Saurabh Sen Sharma as Sunny was as bright as his name and he lived up to his reputation of being an actor of substance and a very versatile one at that. Saharssh Bubna was a revelation. He has obviously worked hard on clearing his speech and loosening up his limbs and was effortless as the promiscuous Ass Win. Rohit as three characters was charming and a clever relief introduced by the script to give a break to the three main people – Sunny, Rehan and Mandy. Rohit’s stoic Sardar act was hilarious and stood out in the play.

The see-saw confrontations and showdowns between the two not-yet-lovers-we-are-only-good-friends couple of Sunny and Rehan (Saurabh and Rahul) kept the audience’s funny bone occupied. And though the script did not allow or even merit a Ha Ha kind of laughter, the frequency of chuckles it elicited was enough to make the audience comfortably numb.

I particularly liked the attempt to give us a full length glass window feel using Ashwin’s cleanliness fetish to show off a bit of window cleaning. Ashwin also performed exceedingly well when he was fantasizing about a factory worker and his enactment of the trapeze-swing-by-the-balls routine was hilarious.

As Gurjit Singh of the US Consulate announced at the very beginning, the play has used humour to highlight the travails of a gay couple and the acceptability of the subject of homosexualism by the audiences. And I think it was done very well, very in your face…but with a smile.

Well done Cathayatra…