Anthony Malarky and Anita Majumdar. Photo by Michael Cooper.

Quotes

Same Same But Different
by Anita Majumdar

Same Same But Different was first developed during our 2007/08 season when Anita was our Playwright-in-Residence. Comprising two self-contained but intersecting one-act plays, each with extensive Bollywood music and dance sequences, Anita’s play draws on the vivid storytelling devices of Indian cinema, and now includes two movie trailer-like video sequences after each act to further capture the experience of Bollywood film on stage.

In Act One, sub-titled Beautiful, a Canadian-born Bollywood starlet (played by Anita) returns to Canada to shoot her new film. On set, Aisha meets Ben, a Canadian-Filipino background dancer. Over the course of the three-day shoot for the film’s big dance number, Ben forces Aisha to re-examine her prejudices about nationality, skin colour, family – and dancing. The third character is the off-stage voice of the film’s director, a demanding, perhaps crazy Bollywood star committed to forcing his ill-suited stars to work together regardless of the cost.

Act Two, called Almost…, moves twenty years into the past to explore the story of Aisha’s Bombay-born mother, Kabira (also played by Anita) and a life-changing encounter she too had with the world of Bollywood. Set in a Mumbai sound recording studio, Kabira has been hired to as a so-called ‘playback singer.’ Just days before her wedding and move to America, she meets Felipe, a Indo-Filipino singer who sees something new in her and the off-stage recording engineer who pushes her singing to new levels. Kabira is to record Hindi versions of Michael Jackson songs that will then be used during the filming of a Bollywood musical, little knowing that her version will then be discarded when a celebrity singer is brought in to tape the final version once the film is completed.

In 2009, Brian directed a workshop presentation of the first act, then called Aisha n’Ben in Vancouver, in collaboration with South Asian Arts as part of the Cultural Olympiad. Act Two received a workshop run at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2010. Audience response was terrific and inspired Anita and Brian to develop each act during her second writting residency at Nightswimming in 2010-11.

Nightswimming then commissioned Anita to bring together the one act plays into a full-length, two-act play that probes further into both the spectacular Bollywood elements and the mother-daughter relationship at the heart of the play. In January 2012, we conducted an exploratory workshop bringing together the latest text with the composed music, and followed that up with an invited workshop presentation of the entire play in November 2012. We are currently planning a final production workshop for September 2013, in preparation for the rolling premiere at Theatre Passe Muraille and Alberta Theatre Projects in early 2014.

The second act of the play, previously performed as Oy! Just Beat It! received a Toronto Fringe Award for Best Ensemble, was named one of the BEST OF THE FRINGE and received an extended run at the Canadian Stage Company’s Berkleley Street Theatre.

Production History

Aisha n’ Ben (act one)
South Asian Arts & Theatre Ji / Cultural Olympiad 2009
Telus Studio Theatre, Vancouver
March 19-21, 2009

Directed by Brian Quirt
Featuring Leon Aureus, Reza Jacobs, Anita Majumdar
Music: Reza Jacobs
Choreography: Anita Majumdar
Set and Lighting Design: Beth Kates
Costume Design: Nina Okens
Stage Manager: Beth Kates and Jeff Harrison

Special thanks: David Yee, Raakhi Sinha, Gurpreet Sian

Oy! Just Beat It! (act two)
Theatre Ji / Toronto Fringe Festival 2010
Tarragon Extra Space, Toronto

Directed by Brian Quirt
Featuring Leon Aureus, Reza Jacobs, Anita Majumdar
Music: Suba Sankaran
Choreography: Anita Majumdar
Set and Lighting Design: Beth Kates
Costume Design: Nina Okens
Stage Manager: Marta Zweirzynska
Producers: Anita Majumdar and Rupal Shah

Special Thanks: fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre, Scarlet O’Neill, Andrew Cheng