A young Bengali theatremaker’s new play brings Bertolt Brecht’s poignant poetry to the stage with a side of fresh alu posto
Meghna Roy Choudhury at the final rehearsal of the play
An old woman walks into a grocery store. It’s 1934 in Germany and she knows she can’t afford everything she needs; her pension has just been cut. Yet, she has walked into a grocery store to make a statement. “If all of us who have nothing no longer turn up where food is laid out, they may think we don’t need anything. But if we come and are unable to buy, they’ll know how it is,” German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht concludes this anecdote in his well-known poem, The Shopper. Today, city-based theatremaker Meghna Roy Choudhury will draw parallels between Brecht’s tumultuous Germany on the cusp of a war and the bustling bylanes of Versova.
Bertolt Brecht. Pic Courtesy/Wikimedia Commons
“I had just landed in Mumbai to work as a theatre facilitator on a salary of R18,000. Take out rent, commute, and basic expenses, and I hardly saved enough to go shopping. This was also when I revisited Brecht’s works. When I read The Shopper, the struggles with food, money and capitalism all sounded way too familiar,” she reveals. “Kheyechish? [Ate?]” Choudhury recalls how her mother would innocently enquire over phone calls amidst the chaos. Titled as an ode to this simple question, the solo play unfolds as a musical culinary drama.
Alu posto, a potato and poppy seed-based Bengali staple
Mumbai’s theatre audiences have seen possibly every prop under the sun being used to tell a story on-stage, or so they believe. Choudhury brings to the stage an induction cooktop, potatoes, rice, vegetables — you get the drift. How else do you expect her to whip up alu posto and phena bhaat for the audience? “I learnt from my grandmother that alu posto and phena — the excess starch from cooking rice — became prized meals during the Bengal Famine in the 1940s. It would be only apt to tell the story of hunger with the aroma of these staples filling the room,” she reveals, assuring us that the audience will not be leaving the premiere empty-stomach.
With plans to take the new play to Pune soon after its Mumbai premiere this weekend, Choudhury has already started working on a new play based on Kadambari Devi, Rabindranath Tagore’s much-discussed muse who inspired three of his books. “We have hit a financial roadblock of sorts, so we’re crowdfunding the production to keep the show going,” she reveals. After all, as the old woman said, it’s only when you show up, will they know how it is.
ON February 22 and 23; 7.30 pm
AT Harkat Studios, Bungalow No. 17, JP Road, Aram Nagar Part 2, Machlimar, Versova.
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