Theatre in Review: Public Obscenities (Theatre for a New Audience)

	Gargi Mukherjee. Photo: Hollis King

In its initial engagement, last season at Soho Rep, Public Obscenities was acclaimed and laden with awards, for reasons that are easy to see. (It has been a magnet for theatre companies; NAATCO co-produced with Soho Rep and Woolly Mammoth paired with TFANA on the current edition.) Its many virtues include an unusual setting, freshly imagined characters, a frank look at queer life in an entirely different cultural context, a solid ensemble, and an enormously evocative production design. Furthermore, playwright Shayok Misha Chowdhury has an eye for telling details and a keen awareness of his characters' subtle emotional shifts. Indeed, this meticulously crafted vehicle has everything but a motor to power it.

The play's premise is original and engaging. Choton, a Bengali-American graduate student, has returned to Kolkata (his birthplace) with Raheem, his boyfriend, a freelance director of photography. They're on a research trip for Choton's proposed dissertation on queer life in India, focusing on intersex, nonbinary, and trans persons, especially their relationship to the 1860 British Penal Code that provides the play with its title. It's an ambitious project with vague theoretical underpinnings that Choton will struggle more than once to explain.

The young men are staying with Choton's aunt, Pishimoni, the daughter of a distinguished educator known in the family as Dadu (or "grandfather.") She lives with her husband, Pishe, an unemployed engineer, in a decaying house that he accurately describes as "a mausoleum" dedicated to Dadu's memory. Pishe, in poor health thanks to his addiction to sweets and cigarettes, spends his time playing billiards online and flirting on the Internet with a divorcée from Minnesota.

Well, this isn't a setup we've seen before. But if the combination of conventional Indian life with queer studies is provocative, the scenes move at a measured tempo, often scaled to a hush. Early on, Choton and Raheem, preparing to sleep, carefully set up a mosquito net over their bed. Curled up together, they search for interview candidates on Grindr and its local variants, but soon they are amusing themselves, exchanging comments and dick pics with attractive-looking candidates. Raheem falls asleep while Choton, aroused, masturbates. (Amusingly, he interrupts this activity to turn around the enormous photo of Dadu, putting his face to the wall.) The entire sequence is designed to depict the characters' comfortable intimacy, but it goes on at length, mostly in the dark, behind a net, with much of the dialogue delivered in a murmur. It's a positive festival of distancing devices.

The promise of something dramatic happening arrives when Raheem discovers an undeveloped roll of film in a camera that belonged to Dadu. To everyone's surprise, the photos turn out to be sensual studies of their famously stern patriarch, a revelation that unleashes small waves of shock and mystery. (Choton, who, thanks to his upbringing, grew up mightily inhibited about his body, is especially bemused; Pishimoni basically can't process this new information.) Among the nagging questions: Who could possibly have taken the pictures? But it's a twist that leads nowhere: The photos are insufficiently described, they don't lead to a new understanding of Dadu, and their effect on the characters is difficult to gauge.

Many other things happen. Chowdhury introduces Shou, a vivacious kothi (in India, a form of female-identifying gay man), who strolls through public parks, looking for lovers. We learn rather more than we might like about Choton's highly sensitive foreskin, cueing an incidence of oral sex accidentally interrupted by Jitesh, the family servant; this embarrassing moment leaves Raheem disturbed for reasons that are not explored. In addition, a surprising number of events happen offstage, including a barely audible FaceTime session with Choton's father and an interview with Thammi, Dadu's ailing widow, who is seen via video. Pishe is so haunted by a nighttime dream that he describes it twice, in detail; later, we see it, performed in an extended Bollywood-style video sequence. The third time is not the charm.

It's an evening of casual throwaway moments that might constitute the stuff of a captivating novel. (Chowdhury's observations are almost Henry Jamesian in their understated quality.) Onstage, packed into a three-hour running time, they add up to a singularly undramatic experience. This kind of overheard, off-the-cuff structure can be made to work; see David Adjmi's Stereophonic or anything by Annie Baker. But such plays have an underlying tension that is deeply felt even if left undiscussed. In contrast, Public Obscenities, which is filled with intriguing passing thoughts about gender, colonialism, and eroticism in the digital age, has no point of focus that would pull them into a compelling dramatic pattern.

Chowdhury, who also directed, gets some strikingly naturalistic work from his cast, most of whom shift fluently between English and Bangla. (Surtitles are provided.) As Choton and Raheem, Abrar Haque and Jakeem Dante Powell have an easy way with each other that feels just right. Tashnuva Anan brings plenty of sparkle to the role of Shou, who dreams of lasting romance and/or Hollywood stardom, whichever comes first. Gargi Mukherjee is effectively rattled as Pishimoni, her sense of self undermined by the photos of Dadu. Debashis Roy Chowdhury is touching as Pishe, looking vainly for fulfillment via the screen of his personal computer.

Peiyi Wong's expansive set, depicting the house's shabby concrete interior, is filled with atmospheric details, including kitchen knickknacks, a gated entrance, barred windows, and a shrine to Dadu. Each of Barbara Samuels' lighting looks is meticulously realized, suggesting various times of day while adding shading and depth to the scenery; in the daytime scenes, you can practically feel the heat wafting in from the outdoors. Enver Chakartash's costumes have much to say about the characters; note how Choton's outfits trend more and more toward Indian styles as the play unfolds. Tei Blow's sound design ably suggests street life unfolding nearby. Johnny Moreno's video work is highly accomplished, although I think the montage of TV commercials seen before Act I suggests that we're in for a much more broadly comic play than we get, and the sequence depicting Pishe's dream feels unnecessary. One felicitous touch is how various scenes end with a photo being taken, the image appearing in an upstage window, first as a negative, then developing in real time.

Still, as Choton and Raheem pack up for their return home, it's difficult to say how much has happened and how much it matters. Chowdhury is a thoughtful writer with a real affection for his characters and, to his credit, he doesn't attempt to spoon-feed the details of Indian culture to a Western audience. But, if Public Obscenities never bores, it also never fully engages. I wonder if it played better in the much smaller Soho Rep; perhaps scaling up the performances for TFANA's bigger theatre might help. In any case, it follows its internal rhythms, whatever the price. At the intermission, a man sitting behind me said to his companion, "I like the pace. It's calming." Yes, but is that what one wants from theatre? --David Barbour