Nadira Zaheer Babbar's Ekjute theatre group is holding the first stage rehearsal of their Hindi play, Sharafat Chodde Di Maine. Prithvi Theatre may be a small place, but the group has made optimum use of resources.

Invariably, everything is multipurpose. Spartan walls, with a meagre view of a flaky window, swing back to reveal a well-furnished room. Two chairs join to make a box, a bathtub, and even a car. A visible door is made invisible by putting hinges on the opposite side. One actor doubles up as a set designer, another as the stage manager. A performer handles the lights, box office and finance, another has compiled the music, operates the sound and looks after the publicity.

The props are in place and Nadira assembles the whole unit. Everyone is told to make a note of the props they will be carrying. Even the time required to eat a slice of bread has to be noted. "And please change that tray, things keep falling off it," she adds.

Lights dim to a psychedelic flash-dance, in tune with racy drum beats and cymbals clashes. The play has opened. Four dancers come on stage and follow a circular path. Nadira is not pleased and sends them back. The second time a dancer forgets to move a chair. Again, she interrupts the dance with a sharp call, "Save your intelligence for later. Do what I tell you to." Third time round they do it correctly. Two of the dancers enter holding a curtain. The cloth drops to reveal a crouched figure behind it -- the magician and hypnotist, P C Pasha, has made his entry. He flings his hands out and while all attention is fixed on his glittering costume and pencil thin moustache, the dancers quietly exit from the still-dark stage. "Devio, Devtao, Dildaro, Hasinao...aap sab ko P C Pasha kaa namaskar...," he continues, as voices in the audience jeer at his Bengali accent. Pasha claims he will have the last laugh after the audience has seen his sleight of hand.

He calls for a volunteer. A cast member, sitting in the audience, steps forward. The flow of the play is stopped as Nadira tells him to come running onto the stage, and gives instructions that the lights should go "full intensity" simultaneously. Pasha starts hypnotising the volunteer, Anil Kumar Date (Ashok Pagare). The music starts. "Riyaz, music came late," Nadira's voice cuts through. The hypnotist continues. Within seconds, Date is in a trance. Pasha instructs him to forget his name. Snap go the magicians fingers and Date jumps up, scared out of his wits.

Nadira interjects that he is to be afraid after he is asked his name and finds he can't remember it. Next it's Pasha's turn to commit a faux pas. "Anilji, could you tell me your name..." Cut! Pasha bites his tongue. Second time, the question is framed correctly and Pasha commands him to laugh non-stop, which he promptly does. Watching a play rehearsal is like existing on two planes. No sooner have the story-tentacles enveloped you, than the director's voice cuts through and breaks the spell. Date slinks off to a corner, laughing.Then enters Pasha's assistant, Beauty (Nameeta Prakash) and twirls around with him. Pasha wants Beauty to choose a man from the audience. She picks Satyavan Vaishnavi (Darpan Mishra), a wife-fearing and cowering man. A brief struggle and Pasha has him under control. In between, Nadira reminds Date that he has stopped laughing.

The macabre laughter starts again. Pasha finds out that though Satya is the homely type, there is also a wanton streak in him. "Satyavan suffers from double Ich," gleefully announces Pasha. And then he sets about freeing the Mr Hyde from Satya's Dr Jekyll. Satya starts flirting with Beauty and pulling off his clothes. Pasha reminds him that things are getting out of hand. "Censor! Censor! You are performing in front of an Indian audience," he says. But Satya is in no mood to listen. The ex-coward beats up the magician and act one ends with Pasha screaming and running around on stage, with Satya behind him. Sharafat Chodde... is an adaptation of Alexander Vernon's, Will Any Gentleman. The story is about the reversals in Satyavan's character. "It is a dual personality. Shifting smoothly and convincingly from Satya-one to Satya-two is the biggest challenge for me," says Darpan. As a child, Satya is brash and impudent while his younger brother, Avinash, is the quiet, studious kind -- the "good boy" of the family. "Avinash has been introduced to show duality in Satya's character, who is suppressed for so long that he blasts out finally," says Prakash Soni, who plays Satya.

After the hypno-session, Satya gets to keep his dual personality. That leads to a comedy of errors as he keeps slipping in and out of his overdrive mode. He flirts with the bai, shaves off his moustache and replaces Rs One lakh from the bank safe where he works as a cashier with parathas. The bank manager is the stereotypical Parsi, played by Hanif Patni. "The role is physical and I had to bring in a lot of variation. I could not go around shouting and screaming all the time," he says. The role was challenging for Shubhrajyoti, too. "I am an introvert. But as Pasha, I have to exaggerate and play the extrovert, to make it believable," he says.

While the acting is good, what is remarkable is the control Nadira exerts over the crew, who call her Maaji. One tersely-spoken command and things get done promptly. While the play is good, the effect is somewhat lost due to a profusion of double entendres. And few scenes appear contrived and pedestrian in this two hour 20 minute-long play, set in six scenes and three acts. The play, Sharafat Chodde De Maine opens at Prithvi Theatre on June 17, 1997

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.