I caught QTP’s penultimate production of their veteran play, Project S.T.R.I.P. starring Dilnaz Irani, Harssh Singh, Keith Antony Sequeira, Neil Bhoopalam and Shruti Sridharan, on an Easter weekend at the Prithvi Theatre of Mumbai, India. It is difficult to present political satire in India, often the realm of political realism and satire seem to blend into one here. Despite this, QTP’s Project S.T.R.I.P. manages to hold our thoughts, beguiling us into the make-believe lives of Captain Roy, the corporation, the alliance and the activist.
The play is about the inevitable capitalist impulses of deranged corporations taking over indigenous land, culture and ecosystems, ultimately annihilating them. Neil Bhoopalam essays the role of the “incompetent/brainwashed terrorist” that is here to fight the corporations, but seems to be unaware of “why” he is doing it. Dilnaz Irani is “Aarti,” the voice of reason, purity, and selflessness. Roy and his two minions are interchanging faces of the corporate, demonstrating the endless struggle for power enmeshed in modern corporate life.
The production had an interesting use of props and music, all aiding the absurdity of the play. The metaphor of the big fish tank was not lost on the audience. The play was humorous, evoking many chuckles and loud bursts of laughter throughout its run. The actors were tuned to perfection, a testament to the play’s 15-year-long run. The production manages to do what it set out to do - inform and humor the audience. However, the play or the creators had no Brechtian impulse to provoke the audience or jolt them into action. The writing by award-winning playwright Ram Ganesh Kamatham is crisp and hilarious, foreign in its conception as the setting of the play mimics the struggles of indigenous people all over the world, everywhere else except India. Hence, the message is clear but with little meaning in the Indian context.
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