A Musical Marriage

Faezeh Jalali has returned to the Prithvi Theatre Festival with Runaway Brides, a hilarious musical about Indian weddings

- Suhani Singh

Faezeh Jalali loves to fill up the stage with a big acting ensemble. In her latest production, Runaway Brides, which premiered at the Prithvi Theatre Festival, the multi-hyphenate theatre-wallah does exactly that, but she takes a filmi route. The backdrop is a wedding and there's chaos, and plenty of scandal, when the groom and bride's mothers run off; there's also a Barjatya-like antakshri which lends itself to many Hindi film songs. But despite the tropes, you know it's a Jalali work with the humour and progressive social takes woven in. The play has an interfaith couple, lesbian lovers and a wedding vigilante struggling to disrupt the proceedings. "I have always thought that theatre is where you should be able to say what you need to say. Since such few people are watching it, less people are offended," says Jalali