The Blue Mug

"Konkana Sen Sharma makes her debut in theatre with the Blue Mug" - a headline in Bangalore Times. I am an absolute fan of Konkona so I googled some more and as I went through the cast I was like WOW!!! The entire cast was very impressive - Rajat Kapoor, Ranvir Shorey, Vinay Pathak, Sheeba Chaddha and Munish Bhardawaj.

I also read that the content of The Blue Mug was evolved by a group of actors and the director through a series of workshops and that it is a work without a script!!! Very interesting!!!

It is a play based on 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat' by psychiatrist Oliver Sacks, and takes us into the world of the neurologically impaired.

It’s a different thing that as I watched the play I didn’t feel that any of them was neurologically impaired. To me it seemed more like ordinary people trying to deal with the bizarre world of memory and creating bits and pieces from their forgotten past.

Some of my friends who went with me found the play a bit haphazard. There was no continuity or a storyline is what they felt.

However, I really enjoyed it. It reminded me of one of my all time favorite Audrey Hepburn movie - Two for the Road. The story is told in a non-linear fashion, and scenes from latter part of her life are juxtaposed with those from the beginning. Quite entertaining.

Also many of the anecdotes were ones that I could identify with…whether it was Rajat Kapoor with his Mango parties in Delhi (in my case Chandigarh/Jammu) or Sheeba with her description of the Saharnpur house, the galis and the all in one mundu!
When Vinay Pathak was talking about his Dad’s first visit to his hostel I was like – “that could be me!”

Ranvir Shorey and Konkana played a doctor/patient duo. For some reason his mind had stopped at a particular age and he could not remember anything from that point on. Even if he was told something, in the next few minutes he would forget. Ranvir Shorey was quite a humorous but at the same time the entire sequence was done in a very sensitive way.

Couple of things - I felt that Konkana Sen was not used to her potential. And I couldn’t understand why the play was called “Blue Mug”. There was a Rajat Kapoor memory around a Blue Mug so maybe coz of that.

A lovely play and also it was very realistic. So much so that at the end I was wondering if the actors were actually playing parts from their own lives!