Guru Of Chai Simmers With Toothsome Tastes Of India

Tuesday, 6 August 2024, 6:50 pm
Article: howard davis

Indian Ink’s famed production of Guru of Chai has returned to Wellington’s re-energised Hannah Playhouse, fourteen years after its world premiere. Since he emerged from Indian Ink’s first show, Krishnan’s Dairy (for which he won an Edinburgh Fringe Festival Award), veteran Kiwi thespian Jacob Rajan has become a master of timing and audience interaction as he slips between seventeen different characters with all the ease of a greased chameleon.

Working together with Indian Ink co-director Justin Lewis, Rajan first produced the play in 2008. Since then, theirs has become one of Aotearoa’s most successful theatre companies, winning not only thirteen national and international awards and critical acclaim, but also standing ovations and sell-out seasons.

Although their latest version of Guru of Chai is replete with Covid and Starbucks references, it remains loosely adapted from The Tale of Punchkin: A Lesson in Kindness and Caution by renowned folklorist Joseph Jacobs, a cautionary story of compassion and unexpected consequences published as part of a collection of Indian fairy tales in 1892. Mixed up in the brew is more than a pinch of the sort of magical realism found in Salmon Rushdie’s novels, so it’s not surprising that Rajan’s first character is a questionable guru, Kuitsar, who promises “Tonight, my friends, all your problems will be gone” with all the unctuous charm of a well-practiced snake-oil salesman.

Rajan and Lewis fondly recall in the program notes how they first met the real-life inspiration for their guru in Bali - “Nyoman Sukerta was a master mask dancer and shadow puppeteer [who] immediately became the model for our Guru character. A squat little man who moved with astonishing grace and fluidity; always smiling, always laughing, a weakness for beer and cockfighting, steeped in the traditions and nuances of shadow puppetry and masks yet desperate to have a Facebook page. Gently worried about his growing paunch, his ambition toward wealth and status were at odds with his desire to go fishing at every opportunity. Indulged his children, exasperated his long-suffering wife, the man literally danced his way into our lives … We hope his spirit lives on in this play.”

Kutisar goes on to narrate his story as a destitute chai-wallah working at a busy Bangalore railway station whose life was magically transformed when seven sisters appear, having been abandoned by their impoverished parents. He recalls nostalgically how they started busking and the youngest, Balna, brought the place to a standstill with the transformative beauty of her singing.

Other characters include a Officer (later Minister) Punchkin whose rapid rise through the ranks to the very top of the state bureaucracy is doubled by the mysterious Fakir, an evil and elusive underground mastermind. Eschewing the masks he’s adopted in the past, Rajan simply relies on a horrific set of browned and decaying dentures that rival Les Patterson’s and the unnerving habit of wiping his nose and forehead with his tea towel, as he seamlessly metamorphosises from guru, to tea seller, to Balna, to poet, and a plethora of other characters too numerous to mention.

Rajan imbues each character with their own distinctive gestures and accents, employing a host of subtle verbal and physical cues that are rarely confusing, despite the rapid-fire conversations and witty transformations that occur among them. The extraordinary range and versatility of his talents are stretched to their limit and still pass with flying colours. He is hauntingly accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Adam Ogle, as a mute street musician who strategically deploys nicely subdued Bangalore beats and subtle sound effects with equal aplomb.

© Scoop Media

Howard Davis

Scoop Arts Editor

Educated at Cambridge and UCLA; worked on several major Hollywood feature films and as a Kundalini Yoga instructor in Los Angeles; currently enjoying life in Wellington.

Contact Howard Davis

• Email - howard@scoop.co.nz