By R. Paul Dhillon – Editor DESIBUZZCanada
I haven’t seen live theatre in a long time and Punjabi theatre in ages but the absolute pro staging of Punjabi playwright-screenwriter-director Pali Bhupinder Singh’s Wrong Number, a poignant and emotionally engaging look at male-female relationships, is the perfect brew for modern times.
The beautifully staged play by director Jas Karan Singh at the Surrey Civic Theatre at City Hall Sunday afternoon brought out a large crowd with nearly 50 people forced to turn away. Those lucky to get seats were treated to an outstanding theatrical experience with one of Pali Bhupinder Singh’sfinest plays about a man who has been confined to a wheelchair after an accident and his new demoralised and handicapped (both emotionally and physically) self is hell bent on wrecking his loving marriage by delusions of his wife having an affair with her colleague.
This potent psychological effect on the play’s main protagonist Adi, played with great dramatic energy and subtleness by Narinder Mangoowal, is at the heart of this engaging play that is a refreshing and modern look at relationships in Punjabi society.
The play examines how women are ill treated by both impotent males (taking out their own frustrations on them) and the all leering society that makes women the object of false propaganda, accusing them of infidelity and selfishness.
While infidelity and abuse maybe done by both sexes and it may also happen in normal relationships (not only in cases of one person getting sick or injured) as the relationship hits midlife, Pali Bhupinder Singh’s play lays bare the ugliness, the poison and bitterness that can destroy relationships. In Adi’s case, he has become a living hell over his delusions of his wife Satya’s (played with great tenderness and fragility by Harpreet Ahluwalia) alleged affair even though she showers him with nothing but love and kindness while trying not to drown in his abuse and the hell he has created for both of them.
The play’s title Wrong Number comes courtesy of Kalpna (played with oomph and style of a rich-bored house-wife by Kamal Sidhu), a character who is the reflection of Adi but who isn’t mired in dark and despair but is fully aware of her status in her unloving marriage.
Kalpana seeks her dream lover Akaash who she’s never seen or met and who she knows that if she ever did meet she would never be with him as it’s hard to love people you are with. Kalpana tries to show Adi the light so the darkness doesn’t consume him but is it too late? Has Adi destroyed everything that was good in his life which was Satya!
Wrong Number is an absolutely engrossing play and an apt look at modern relationships. Hope Jaskaran and his talented team (Narinder Mangoowal is amazing as the main lead and a real find) re-stage this play soon so more people, especially couples, can see it and enrich themselves!
R. Paul Dhillon is an award-winning journalist, art-music-film critic and filmmaker. He is the founder and editor of DESIBUZZCanada and DESIBUZZbc publications.
