Attention, mystery buffs!This play in town is just for you

36 Defence Colony is set to give the audiences a classic whodunnit with a more realistic and grounded spin.

Love a good whodunnit? Well, you might be in luck, as an upcoming theatrical production in town promises to give you your fix. Titled, 36 Defence Colony, the play revolves around the mysterious murder of the owner of the Deewan empire, Savitri Deewan. A case where everyone is the suspect. Sounds interesting, right?

While most would expect the usual tropes of a murder mystery to form the backbone of the story, writer and director Manil Mayank Mishra, says that the play is a more realistic take that would have the audience seeing beyond the obvious. “The play is rich in content. We wanted a content-based production and thus researched how the police functions, what goes into such an investigation, the investigative process and how many people are usually involved in such cases. Even the characters are written in a way that they do not draw you out of the narrative but are seamlessly stitched into it, creating an engaging story. The story too doesn’t end just because it has to, but because it comes to a proper conclusion. Some lines of the play would also give the audience a feel of the 70s cinema,” says Mishra.

Ask Mishra who the protagonist of the play is, and he simply answers saying, “Shakk sab par hai. All characters in the production are equally important, but none is the protagonist here. Actually, the production is what stands out. We wanted to flesh out the characters in a very realistic setting where nothing they do is larger than life or is out of character for them. We had a process of developing these characters where we didn’t give the actors a script, but just a few character traits so that they could understand the person completely before they got to reading the script and playing their part. They were, of course, given enough space to improvise but that too was done in a way where they didn’t break from their characters. Even while fleshing out the antagonist, we tried to make it a character which had shades of grey so that the audience wouldn’t hate it by the end of the play but understand what their motivations and situations were.” Mishra also adds that while the play does have humour as a part of it, it isn’t really a comedy. “The play has elements of humour but isn’t a comedy. The humour too has been dealt in a way where it doesn’t seem like we’re trying to push a point. It’s an ideologically neutral approach we’ve taken where we relate more to basic fundamental emotions that everyone can relate to.”