Five Point Someone – the Play

A friend invited me to see the Madras Players’ Production of Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone. The production was presented by Evam at IIM Calcutta’s annual cultural fest – Carpe-Diem. The story of 3 students – Ryan, Alok and Hari – at IIT Delhi was adapted wonderfully and as far as the story itself is concerned, I liked how everything falls into place and the various sub-plots converge to make a happy ending.

The characters have been described very sharply by the author and implemented equally well in the play – especially Alok’s idiosyncrasies. Alok’s character is that of a boy from a lower-middle class who is a little paranoid to get a good job – understandably so, he has an old paralyzed father and an unmarried sister. The story is cliched. Most of the book is. But what takes the cake is the way the book is written – excellent one-liners – and the production complemented it very well – punctuated with comic timing. Director Nikhila Kesavan deserved every bit of the applause she got at the end.

The cast looked and sounded quite similar to the picture I had formed in my mind after reading the book. The pick of the actors, IMHO, would be V Sarvesh Sridhar (Alok) – impeccable. Uttara Krishnadas also played the (only!) female character of Neha Cherrian excellently and was an (obvious!) cynosure in the other-wise male-dominated plot.

The background score had Floyd playing all over it – but then the audience didn’t complain – neither did I. Floyd, quizzes, viva, mid-terms, end-sems, parathas, sutta, vodka (Ok.. Stop!) – are phrases which bring back fond memories of hostel life in an engineering college! So.. Yeah.. the nostalgia bit was quite the icing on the cake!

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Related Links:

• Chetan Bhagat’s message on Samit Basu’s older Duck of Destiny blog

• An interesting interview of Karthik, a MICA alumnus and one of the co-founders of Evam

• Review of the play on KK’s live spaces blog

Pictures courtesy: Placid Freedom

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