When the Orchestra is a Character: Conductor Mikel Toms on Tom Stoppard's Every Good Boy Deserves Favour'

The National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Mumbai hosts four shows this month of the play, starring Neil Bhoopalam and Denzil Smith and directed by Bruce Guthrie

- ANURAG TAGAT

If you ever needed a review of a play from the conductor of the music behind it, just ask Mikel Toms about his work on Tom Stoppard’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. “It’s crazy and funny and dark,” he says over a Zoom call about the production being staged at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) this week in Mumbai.

Directed by Bruce Guthrie, featuring music originally composed by Andre Previn, the 65-minute play in India sees Denzil Smith and Neil Bhoopalam in lead roles. But among the most important characters, in a rare instance, are the orchestra members themselves. Toms describes the play as a perfect mix of how a story and music together enhance the narrative. Set in Soviet Russia, the premise centers on the character of a dissident named Alexander Ivanov, who has no mental illness but is deemed so after speaking up against the regime. This Ivanov ends up sharing a cell with another Ivanov, who is a genuine schizophrenic imagining he’s in a symphony orchestra, as a triangle player no less.

Originally staged in November 2022, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour returns to NCPA this month and Toms talks about what makes the whole production so special, right from having the orchestra physically interact with characters on stage to the Soviet-era inspired music that he conducts. Excerpts:

What has your experience been with this particular production in the past and what’s changing with the upcoming run of shows?