| . | 05/16/2004
Bombay Dreams
By: Jeannie Lieberman
Ayesha Darker (center) Photo by Joan Marcus
You are in an old-fashioned gilt-edged movie house, watching an early Cecil B DeMille extravaganza. The plot: poor boy wants to escape slums by becoming a movie star. Nice girl helps him but belongs to someone else. Sexy but bitchy star seduces him, makes him into a star and he turns his back on his roots and family, But is he happy? The music swells and diminishes reflecting the emotions onscreen.
But no! Wait! This is not Hollywood of the ‘30’s, its present day Bollywood, India’s Hollywood in Bombay, where over 900 films, highly successful Indian versions of the old Hollywood blockbusters with Big Stars, Big Sets and little plots are made each year.
Andrew Lloyd Webber, England’s mega musical composer/producer, fell in love with A.R. Rahman’s music and was inspired to produce a musical by “the Asian Mozart” as he is known throughout India. Shekhar Kapur and Lloyd Webber co-conceived this production, with Don Black’s lyrics and hired Broadway’s Tom Meehan to Americanize Meeha Syal’s book.
Under James Abbott’s baton, the music builds slowly, insinuating itself throughout the vast, ornate Broadway Theater. Its starts with quiet plaintive tones, instruments are added from the orchestra pit then insistent percussion from the side boxes. It swells inexorably, washing over you. You are in designer Mick Potter’s “surround sound” and you might as well give in as these rhythms will not cease till you are once again on the street.
Akaash is the young man desperate to save his neighborhood from impending destruction, to keep his home, which he shares with his kind, wise grandmother, and friends, and to rise above his caste. A lawyer miraculously appears to represent them and save them from destruction. He is financing his fiancée, Priya, daughter of India’s famous filmmaker, who is making a documentary of the situation. Akaash is smitten! His friend, Sweetie, a beautiful eunich (apparently a commonly accepted element in India), enlists him to protest at a beauty pageant featuring the mega movie star Rani. At the protest Akaash is “discovered” by Rani and hired as her next leading man and eventual lover. Rani convinces Akaash that any connection with his family and friends will ruin his career. Things suddenly go downhill for him as he yearns for the young Priya who is about to get married and demolition of his neighborhood is imminent. But wait! Can he save his home by revealing his roots? Can he prevent the marriage by exposing the lawyer/groom? Of Course! Its Bollywood!
Siriram Ganesan (center), Anisha Najarajan (right) and company. Photo by Joan Marcus
The cast is extremely talented. As the young hero, Manu Narayan’s voice is mellifluous, generously flavored with Indian inflections and vocal flourishes. His energy is undeniable. The clear voiced, sincere Anisha Nagaraian, as the ingénue, is an NYU Sophomore who responded to an open call. Sriram Ganesan is extraordinary as the devoted but doomed Sweetie. It is difficult to identify the names with the characters they play from the program but those in key roles: Priya’s father, her fiancée, the lawyer, Akaash’s grandmother and young friend are all perfectly cast Ayesha Dharker, who plays Rani, was brought over from the London production in which she starred. She is cute and as mischievous as she is curvy and one cannot help but smile at her even when she is playing the villainess and perhaps that’s what its all about.
The story is so trite it is clearly not meant to be more than a vehicle to present a buoyant celebration of the art form. Director Steven Pimlott keeps the show moving kaleidoscopically. Mark Thompson’s extraordinary costumes and sets are worth the price of admission alone. Enhanced by High Vanstone’s colorful lighting the scene in which the cast dances under/in a giant fountain is so outrageously over the top it inspires smiles of appreciation, but there are also breathtaking harbor views and opulent interiors. Despite the requisite hip swiveling and hand fluttering the authentic Indian flavored movements are more sharp elbows and flex footed side kicks, energetic but not essentially pleasing to the western eye. They are performed with infectious gusto and high spirit as is the rest of the show. Yet one wishes more creativity could be found in the Anthony Van Laast/ Farah Khan choreography (especially since they are both credited). Their signature movements become so redundant that, by show’s end, one can practically dance along. Or was that deliberate, too?
Ayesha Darker (center) and Company Photo by Joan Marcus
Surprisingly the same could be said for the score. It is a new musical idiom to Western ears, and its harmonies are alien at first. In the few quiet moments the love songs are pleasant and accessible and there is even a rap song. The one identifiable song, Shaka Laka Baby, is already catching on. The overall sound is exotically different and, at first, seductive. The constant rhythms pound into your body till they become visceral and your toes tap body twitches along with the blatantly sexual hip gyrations of both male, female and “mixed” dancers onstage…but just as too rich deserts become cloying the constant aural bombardment of the ubiquitous score runs the peril of becoming subliminally irritating.
Despite the merciless assault of the critics “Bombay Dreams” is the best bet of this year’s musicals guaranteed to entertain. “Assassins” is not a barrel of laughs, Hugh Jackman is leaving “Oz”, Nathan and Mathew are leaving “Producers”, “Wicked” is long and dark, “Avenue Q” is cute but makes you think, “Carolyn, or Change” is depressing. If you are looking for a vibrant, colorful, visually stimulating, music filled evening with a happy ending, take a trip to Bollywood.
Broadway Theater, 1681 Broadway at 53rd St. 212 239-6200
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