9. Sept 2014

REVIEWS
A POWER
PERFORMANCE
houseful of audience were amused by
A veteran Bollywood actor Anupam Kher’s
solo play Kuchh Bhi Ho Sakta Hai on August
22, at the Army Officers’ Club, Sundhara.
The performance of Saaransh actor, also
known for movies like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le
Jayenga, Hum Aaapke Hai Kaun along with
critically acclaimed movie like Maine Gandhi
Ko Nahi Mara was sterling – thanks to the
well-scripted play with a good direction and
of course a power performance.
This versatile and talented actor of Hindi
cinema made the two-and-half hour long
play worth watching and proved such a
long monologue is indeed fun to watch if
delivered in Kher’s way.
Directed by Feroze Abbas Khan, this is an
autobiographical play, thus chronicles Kher’s
journey as a human being and as an actor.
The actor enacts his own story on stage,
capturing his life from Shimla to Bombay.
As Kher narrated and dramatized some
important events of his life, the audience
got glimpses of fun to romantic to struggling
to sad and successful moments of his life.
From his first kiss as a teenager to rejection
in love as a youth to struggle of getting the
first break in Bollywood to handling of fame
and success to again being a failure, the play
captured some major important events of
Kher’s life. There were ordinary moments in
his life like that of any other common man.
And there were some incidents that seemed
dramatic – like Kher cursing Mahesh Bhatt for
not letting him do Saaransh, the melodramatic
encounter with father of the girl he loved.
While portraying these life incidents, the
actor interacted freely with the audience thus
making the audience relate to his story.
Along with simply narrating the events
just the way they happened to making
commentaries of certain incidents which
were often humorous, the play was
presented in diverse way. And there
was imitation of some moments – his
performance in his first play of his life Prithvi
Raj Chauhan and doing a rape scene for a
movie with Jaya Prada.
The gloom and pain was felt when he told
his stories of failure – when he was rejected
for Nehru’s role in Gandhi film, when he was
in debt and when his face got paralyzed.
Whether he told his story of success or
failure, pain or happiness, loss or gain,
Kher did equal justice to all the parts.
Neither he was not only basking in his
success nor was carried away while
highlighting his failure. Of course, he is
the man who “celebrates failure”, but as
an actor, he had delivered his parts with a
sense of objectivity making the production
worth watching. And again he was retelling
his life stories – there were both good and
bad moments, some were of failures and
embarrassment, but Kher boldly revealed
everything.
Nonetheless, the beautiful light design with
right music, minimal props of chair, tables,
a door and a raised platform along with
display visuals and photographs from his
movies were few things that accompanied
Kher for two-and-a-half-hours in this oneman
performance. Not to forget were the
applauses of the audience that resounded
the full house auditorium throughout the
performance.
The creative monologue about Kher’s life
and time is worth a watch.
It was a charity show orgaisned to raise
funds for Koseli foundation, a centre for
children of slums and streets.
16 / SPACESNEPAL.COM