Week 1515 - Oedipus, Romeo and Juliet, Hearth, Jay Kelly

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Counting Down to 90 - Week 1579

Why 1579

Bhavin's WritingsBhavin Jankharia

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During my 9^th standard, we staged a production of Oedipus with Cedric playing the lead role. Jocasta was also played by a boy…Don Bosco was and still is an all-boys school and all the female characters were played by the boys. We thought the play was so good that Kim and Michael, our drama teachers took it downtown to the Sophia College Auditorium for an off-school staging…the reviews were not good. 

I was reminded of this when we went to watch a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Opera House this weekend. Naren was visiting from the US and since the revamped theatre is so good, both outside and inside, irrespective of what is showing, it is a good place to visit with those who haven’t been there. These lovely pics were taken by him.

The play was held under the aegis of the Indian National Theatre Aditya Birla Centre. It was interesting. Shakespearean English mixed with local Mumbai idiomatic Hindi and Marathi. It was also terrible. Except for a few older actors and Juliet, the rest were just amateurish. Worse, the English was so badly enunciated and the diction so poor, you could barely make out the words. The whole staging reminded me of Oedipus, 46 years ago. They must have thought it was terrific, but for most of us it was…painful.

We left during the interval, as did quite a few others and made our way to the newly renovated Eros building to a new restaurant “Hearth of the First”, on the 1^st floor of the building, opposite the Swadesh store. It made up for the disappointment of the Romeo and Juliet performance. When you enter a restaurant, you can sometimes just make out whether it is going to be a good experience or not. This was one of those times. The staff was wonderful, the food was excellent and except for the loud music and the fact that we had to ask for water (after  watching The Bear, one way to rate restaurants is whether they refill the water without you asking), it was a great experience. 

On Sunday we watched Jay Kelly, a movie about a ageing 60-years old superstar who is going through an existential crisis. It was so identifiable and all I can say is that if you are around 60 years old and have been reasonably successful, especially as a professional or an artiste, it is worth a view. One memorable line was “pieces of time” alluding to the way we think of the past in specific blocks of time. The other was “the tragedy of parenting…we are only successful once we’ve made ourselves irrelevant.” George Clooney is always wonderful to look at, but the rest of the cast (Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Greta Gerwig) is equally good.

Life is about choices and their consequences. We could have not gone to the Royal Opera House and could have chosen a different restaurant or could have watched Wicked for Good instead of Jay Kelly. The small choices we make every day define the trajectory of our days and our lives…each new choice arising from the sum of previous choices, good or bad, determining what happens next in our lives.