True to its title, Wildtrack , the new play from Q Theatre Productions, is given a dreamy ambient texture by its sound designer, Kaizad Gherda. The impressionistic soundscape suffuses the play with the emptiness of an overwhelming urban ennui, its tension bubbling just beneath the surface.
Although it is never explicitly stated, the play appears to be set in a bustling city, with its sounds drowned out till we are left only with the elemental tones that mirror the solitude of souls that are alone, not lonely. Sometimes, there are excursions to the seashore at Mandvi, and its waves, rippling softly inches from our feet, invite us in. Throughout, the wind in the background appears to bear the soft gasps of memories passing into time.
Loss and longing, and transition, are essential to the universe: this is what Arghya Lahiri conjures up in his first full-length play. He doubles up as Wildtrack ’s director and quite expectedly, its light designer as well.
Near the start, there is an impossibly beautiful scene, in which the protagonists, Anirudh (Jaimini Pathak) and Deepika (Devika Shahani), travel on a bike, the warmth and moistness of an evening ride is evoked by the alternating of light and shade.
This economy of expression that lends itself to such expansive uses is one of the play’s hallmarks. Its unadorned trappings consist of the rudiments of bachelor existence: DIY paraphernalia, buckets, brown boxes opened up and propped up as walls, a musty mattress on the floor.
Anirudh is a sound designer for film, and his life is presented without too much exposition about the technical aspects of that profession, although that cannot be completely escaped . His and Deepika’s is a star-crossed affair, conducted free of the conditions that bind conventional relationships. It is a world in which missing a baby shower is a setback that can be easily recovered from. Lifelong companionship isn’t part of the arrangement, but there are enough sporadic encounters to fill a lifetime. Anirudh’s functional world of finite things is slowly turned upside-down with the onset of dementia as he ages (this is attributed to a biking accident). There is a history of vascular dementia in his family. The play flits back and forth between its characters’ youth and present, although only the quieter moments from a lifelong engagement are given an airing.
Lahiri’s writing is intelligently indirect and gives us an accurate sense of the zeitgeist to which his characters belong. Pleasing millennial references pepper the narrative. Yet, there are longueurs that weigh down the interactions. As Deepika says, a lot of time is spent ‘spitting in the wind’. The romance almost seems premeditated, and the actual flavour of a relationship captured in such a compelling time capsule appears to be watered down. More pertinently, the questions raised by the play about memories escaping into the nooks and cracks of life remain just that. Anirudh seems to be defined by a past that is slowly slipping by him. We get no sense of his interior world in the present. That would certainly have been a worthwhile exploration, even an opportunity for the material to take off into a more uncharted realm.
What doesn’t entirely help is the awkward chemistry between Shahani and Pathak. Yet, it must be said that the two actors do give off a sense of having undertaken a journey together, and of being ‘of each other’. Shahani’s city-girl persona is a better fit, her irrepressible ringing laughter captured for posterity in an audio file, in one of the play’s best scenes. It is a two-hander, but we leave with no sense of her as anything but a foil. Her reactions to Anirudh’s endearing quirks seems a trifle calculated, like that of a nurse, as if she is already responding to the tragedy of this child-like man. The child does ultimately take over, and then Shahani’s empathy acquires quite a different colour, and the actor comes into her own.
It is not entirely easy to single out Pathak as being miscast in his part. Credit must be given to his craft and sincerity. He is technically proficient, and precise with the emotional registers, and never sets a foot wrong. Yet, his persona doesn’t yet seem to belong to the play’s universe, or translate the underlying pain and suppressed passions so intrinsic to Wildtrack . The scenes where Anirudh approaches an impending decrepitude do still have a heart-aching quality. Youth seems lugubrious by comparison.
The last 20 minutes or so of the play are almost flawless. There are a couple of sprightly scenes in which the actors come alive.
Their first meeting, for instance, is charming and heartwarming. From a fictitious book, Shahani reads a small passage called ‘The Loneliest Runner’. It is a wonderfully evocative piece of writing, that is remarkably visual. Mere words, and an impressive delivery, are enough to create one of the play’s most enduring images: that of a boy running along with a giant bubble and what happens next.
It rings home the fact that despite some of its failings, Wildtrack is that kind of play that one hopes will remain exactly as it is, complete in and of itself.
The writer is a playwright and stage critic
