The Original Last Wish Baby: Dramanon goofed up this time

Plot: Written by William Seebring, The Original Last Wish Baby is a satire that tells the story of a

capitalist society

hell-bent on commercialising everything for profit making. The plot begins in a private hospital where a ‘miracle baby’ is born without a heart. The hospital staff and proprietors, in a bid to earn some publicity, apprise the media about the incident. The media sensationalises the news and the baby becomes famous overnight. A popular production house launches a show titled The Last Wish Baby on national television featuring the heartless child’s mother asking the nation what would be the last wish of the baby. It becomes an instant hit and the TRPs of the channel double. Meanwhile, the heart is found in a refrigerator owned by a woman and is delivered to the child. But once the heart and baby reunite, the baby dies and it kicks up a political storm.

Review: This production was director RK Shenoy’s eighth adaptation of Seebring’s original; each time he’s tried to add something new in a bid to cater to current times. The experiment, this time, started with the stage itself. instead of the podium at

Lamakaan

— where plays are staged — the director decided to use a space which is usually earmarked for the audience. Considering it added no novelty to the production, it seemed like such a wasted effort. more so because it doubled the problems for crew, who couldn’t set the acoustics right, thus delaying the start of the play by a good half-an-hour, testing the audience’s patience. The recurring feedbacks from the microphones were jarring and it didn’t help the play’s cause.Next, Shenoy employed mixed-media to add dramatic effect to the satire. Think choreography, live instrumentation as background score and a projector. In fact, the play began with a choreography which introduced the four actors — Sashidhar Kocharlakota, Gopika Jairam, Ayaz Pasha and Adity Roy Sinha — and established the anonymity of the characters they were playing, with dramatic lighting using flashlights. All that drama not withstanding, the amateur cast only seemed to be dancing to the tunes of director without much say. Both Sashidharan and Gopika however, tried to carry the play on their shoulders with some nuanced acting, but Ayaz and Adity’s rusty performance dipped the flow at crucial junctures. That said, the actors alone aren’t to be blamed. The adapted script itself was a tad too convoluted. For instance, Ayaz’s endeavour to break the fourth wall in the initial monologue seemed a little too forced and the director’s decision to not include an anchor (as in the original) didn’t help either. The flow of the narration was bumpy and the whole purpose of putting across a strong message against media’s manipulation got lost somewhere.The “live instrumentation” tag to the background score seemed more like a publicity gimmick, as most of it was computer generated. Shenoy’s choice to feature himself on the cajon is also questionable, as his beats added no freshness to the average score. Considering the constraints of the open air venue itself, there is nothing much to talk in terms of space lighting and acoustics.

Verdict: The reason why The Original Last Wish Baby is one of the most preferred plays among college-goers and amateur theatre buffs is because it tests their general awareness and the stand they would like to take against an issue in the society. But this production’s adapted script was a disappointment. It had too many elements, haphazardly squeezed into an hour-long narration. It was as if Shenoy just found out about media’s proclivity to sensationalise things, and treated his finding as a groundbreaking discovery. This adaptation was, at best, a goofy homage to Seebring and his original theme of media’s exploitation.