Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, is a political satire by multi-award-winning playwright Sir Tom Stoppard and celebrated conductor/composer Andre Previn. Billed as 'A play for actors and an orchestra', the National Centre for the Performing Arts' new production of this rarely performed landmark theatre event features an all-star cast and a 45-piece orchestra playing live on stage by the Symphony Orchestra of India. Sir Tom Stoppard himself is planning to be in attendance for what is sure to be the must-have ticket of the season.
Bruce Guthrie, Head of Theatre at the NCPA, said, "When I took up my role as Head of Theatre & Films at the NCPA, Chairman Khushroo N Suntook and I discussed plays where cross-genre collaboration could take place. We want to create productions that you could only see at top international venues. Every Good Boy Deserves Favour fits those criteria perfectly. It is an honour to work with the brilliant musicians of the SOI who, under the leadership of Marat Bisengaliev, are known internationally as an orchestra of great quality. Only a handful of companies around the world are capable of mounting this kind of production, so we are delighted to be doing this incredible piece of theatre with a wonderful team of people."
The cast includes Neil Bhoopalam, Denzil Smith, Sohrab Ardeshir, Deepika Deshpande Amin & Mihaail Karachiwala. The multi-award-winning international creative team is led by the NCPA Head of Theatre & Films Bruce Guthrie as Director, Mikel Toms conducting the Symphony Orchestra of India, Rachel D'Souza as movement director, Francis O'Connor as set designer, Pallavi Patel as costume designer, Rick Fisher as lighting designer, Andy Collins as sound designer and Mathew Scott as Music supervisor.
Chairman Khushroo N Suntook expresses, "The NCPA continues to cement its reputation as the first multi-venue, multi-genre cultural centre in South Asia, making unique collaborations, such as this between theatre and Western classical music, possible. The Symphony Orchestra of India will show its versatility by providing the music in the NCPA production of Sir Tom Stoppard's Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, a play for actors and orchestra that is rarely performed. This production adds a new dimension to the theatre-going experience of the city's audiences."
The play brilliantly counters the Soviet iron with Stoppard's style of irony and shows the terrors of living in an orchestrated society. The plot begins with Alexander Ivanov's imprisonment in a Soviet mental hospital, from which he will not be released until he admits that his statements against the government were caused by an alleged mental disorder. Alexander's son begs his father to free himself with a lie. In the hospital, he shares a cell with a genuinely disturbed schizophrenic, also called Alexander Ivanov, who believes he is part of an orchestra. Previn's music is evocative of the Russian classical style. The orchestra appears on stage as a character in the play. This is a play where the music and the text are completely interwoven.
Guthrie shares, "The play is a brilliantly funny, relevant piece that combines spectacle with emotion and conflict. It is Orwellian in tone, it asks questions on the nature of freedom of speech and expression that act as a warning, from history to the modern age."
Sir Tom Stoppard spent his early life in India as a student at Mount Hermon American Multi-Racial School in Darjeeling after his family fled the Nazi occupation of Europe, which is why he has always felt a connection with India. The play being produced and staged in India is like homecoming. His darkly funny and provocative play asks the audience if denying the truth is a price worth paying for liberty.
Experience the brilliance at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA on
November 4 at 7:30 PM
November 5 and 6 at 5 PM and 7:30 PM
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( With inputs from ANI )
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