Review: Punashccha Honeymoon
What do a hallucination, a memory and today have in common? The answer is – A story. A story weaves images past, present and unforseen (the future) into itself to convey something that digs deep at the essence of the storyteller. Weaving three elements of time into one fabric can get confusing for both the reader and the storyteller, but in its exercise, in seeing it through to the end lies its resolution. It is this resolution of past, present and future that Punashccha Honeymoon will take you through.
It is a journey into the hallucinations, delusions and the living days of a once-famous, has-been award-winning writer who has been attempting to write his second book and his marriage to his news reporter wife. The play parallels the writer’s quest to find his destiny, a utopia that is ultimately unattainable, and his life becomes a parallel the the book he’s writing.
The couple decide to revisit their honeymoon hotel, aptly called ‘Hotel Dreamland’ only to find that they’re lost. Interestingly, once they do find it, it happens to resembles the writer’s home back in Mumbai. The writer is visited by an anonymous figure (who we later realize is his wife’s ex) and a bunch of school mates who happen to be dressed in their uniforms. The writer travels through these memories whilst interacting with them, all the while seeking some sort of understanding to what is happening. The audience starts living the author’s imagination, reality and fiction after a certain point of time. The wife, a jovial woman, pips in as a voice of conscience at certain times, while at others, she becomes his dearly beloved. Yet, there is a certain tension that is palpable between the writer and his wife as she tried to get him to come to terms with their relationship and his life, alas, re refuses to relent, siting that writing happens to be his only escape, his only cure.
The sets have been designed keeping the idea of minimal in mind. A bed, a screen and a writing desk in the corner. Having made it this way, it is possible for the sets to morph into a place that occupies a number of locations through time and space in the writer’s mind. It at once becomes Hotel Dreamlad, at some other point it becomes their house, it morphs into a classroom from his childhood and other times it morphs into other, various scenes from the past.
Whoever said the journey was more important than the destination was probably telling the truth. Why I say this you ask? The answer doesn’t have anything to do with happiness or the usual cliches we usually pass off as an answer to the question. Rather, the answer lies in the play’s unfolding. After having watched the play, one realizes that however hazardous and tortuous the journey may be, it tells a story, and the truth is that everybody, loves a good story.
