Varma’s Bhopal was boring and uninspired. The characters were flat. They were as one-dimensional as the dialogue. Can anybody make it in Montreal? Are immigrants so desperate for anything that is written by someone who is desi. This author cannot have had any formal writing education. He would have known better than to have reduced such a rich and complex topic as Bhopal into trite tutti. The Merchant on Venice was just contrivance. The author is no Shakespeare and the Muslim Shylock character doesn’t work. The puns are dumb and vulgar and there is nothing clever in this reinterpretation.

The audience laughed just like trained seals at all the dumb, predictable gags in several of the plays but the only truly funny part of both evenings was this over-acting witch whose face was frozen in a contortion often seen on the face of those smelling something super foul. Her name is Bina Sharif and she is truly awful. It is obvious she thinks very highly of herself and her horrible acting. It was great fun to watch her. There is a saying about a person’s face after 40 (before that it is the face you were born with and after that age it is the face you have created). What awful, horrid expressions must this woman have held . She would be perfect (even sans special effects makeup) for a South Asian reworking of the Wizard of Oz as the wicked one. The Margaret Hamilton character looks absolutely delicate and dainty compared to this beast.

Everything South Asian is hot. So many subalterns now have expendable income and are buying or seeing anything related to India. But the quality of this material is poor. Just like Bollywood productions, most of these plays are shallow reproductions of what has been done by the white folk. What a shame- with a population of more than a billion, did this culture really only have this infantile stuff from which Bose could cull his sample?

Now, for the motti and heera in the dung heap: the South African plays were superb. Though written I the seventies, the themes are relevant and the writing still fresh.The actors were fabulous.Ronnie Govender and his cousin’s daughter Ms. Jones spoke eloquently and intelligently. Mr.Govender read a poem which said more about questions of identity than all the other productions put together. What a shame when artists of his calibur have a tough time paying the bills and those of Varma and Kurup’s level receive kudos.

All the rotten playwrights had some things in common. They were confident, egotistical and clueless about good literature. Neilesh Bose, have you ever read “The Emperor’s New Clothes”? You seem bright and your opening address touched upon so many interesting issues.But most of the plays didn’t. Perhaps the title of the book should have been “Trapped in the Bollywood Aesthetic, the Colonials Grovel and Jest”.

Part I. The United States 1. Chaos Theory Anuvab Pal 2. Sakina’s Restaurant Aasif Mandvi 3. Merchant on Venice Shishir Kurup

Part II. Canada 4. Bhopal Rahul Varma 5. The Death of Abbie Hoffman Rana Bose

Part III. United Kingdom 6. Song for a Sanctuary Rukhsana Ahmad 7. 2001: A Ramayana Odyssey Jatinder Verma 8. Strictly Dandia Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith

Part IV. South Africa 9. The Lahnee’s Pleasure Ronnie Govender 10. Working Class Hero Kessie Govender 11. Looking for Muruga Kriben Pillay

Yoni Ki Baat is another great one – Indian version of Vagina Monologues – played here in Chicago as well.

Anyone ever seen any of Anosh Irani’s plays ? Bombay Black and Matka King ? I saw the latter in Vancouver, BC when I lived there and it was the first, real non-western themed play I had seen and was blown away. He is really talented (pick up The Cripple and His Talismans if you can).

Are they included in this book ?