Bringing together the urban experiences in Bangalore

It’s what you know, you feel, and you see all around you. Put together in a 70-minute performance, the tales of Urban Turban 2, a set of urban stories, range from first time visits to the US to anguish of visa rejects, Nepali Gurkhas to Coimbatore culture shocks, first kisses, finding apartments, film shoots and flimsy food, amongst a host of others, which promise to provide enough food for thought.

“Each of the characters is playing themselves, since each of the incidents is their experience. They are urban stories and dilemmas with a comic twist,” says Bhargav Ramakrishnan, the show’s assistant director. He further explains that a friendly group chat, with each person’s comments, is what has been turned into a performance.

“We want to make Urban Turban into a movement through which a number of people will be given a chance to narrate their tales. If we have a bank of 20-25 stories, we can pick out four or five incidents which can be narrated,” he adds. Now, the plan is to also narrate these incidents, which are close to every urbanite, at unconventional places.

“Such plays do not necessarily have to be staged at a theatre house. We are looking at uncommon places to perform like pubs, cafés, open areas and the like,” says Ramakrishnan.

The play’s director, Sunil Vishnu K, says this is their way of creating a stage platform where each ones gets a chance to all get to share urban stories. “They are tall tales from the top of our head. It’s of the urban, by the urban, for the urban, stories set in urban reality and told from the heart and with a sense of humour — all in all an evening of urban angst and soul served right up your alley,” says Vishnu.

The biggest challenge according to Ramakrishnan has been converting comments and incidents close to the actors into a performance.

“The incidents are so familiar to the narrator, and he would have probably told his friends and acquaintances the incidents, at least a hundred times over. To get him to change his style to fit the required paradigm, so that it connects with the audience, was a great task at hand,” he says.

“It’s a story-telling show, with five performers, each of us having a tale to tell. Crafting a story that connects with the audience has been a fine line that we’ve been treading. Most importantly, we’ve learned to laugh at ourselves,” says Madhuri Shekar, one of the key performers, and currently a masters student in fine arts (dramatic writing) at the University of California.

“We had to go through an audition, where we had to narrate our story in 10 minutes. The episodes have really been worked upon, refining and re- structuring them every now and then so that the audience can associate with them,” she adds.

For first-time actor, S Arvind, being on stage and performing has been an achievement.

“Being a director, I have always been behind the scenes. Coming to the forefront, holding the attention of the audience for 20 minutes, and make them feel what I am going through is a different experience, which has made me overcome my stage fright,” he says, adding that his story, evokes a lot of self-pity and desperation.

Ask him if he chose to act willingly, he says that he was called for a private audition, which he was told was an informal exchange of ideas.

“I came totally unprepared, and when I realised that it was an audition, I just went in without any paper and narrated an incident has had taken place in my life recently. It’s probably the instinctive, close-to-life story that clicked, and the next thing I knew, I was preparing to be on stage,” says Arvind.

Since all the scenes are from everyday life, Arvind adds that it has added to the ease in enacting the ‘role’. “All the incidents are something that everyone would have gone through at some point or the other in their life,” he explains.

Get ready to meet and watch performers, narrating their ‘urban stories, thoughts, theories and peeves!’