Weird

London Falls is a short play about trying to hang on to yourself in a city made of fear, lust and unwanted luggage - the pamphlet had read. I wasn't expecting it to be mainstream theatre when last evening I set out to watch it. I was more right than I thought I was. Life, it seems, has infinite ways of throwing surprises...
A weird evening it was. I had to take a tube from Liverpool street station. There were armed police men every where. 7 had died a month back here in a blast. If the armed men stood there to make people feel safer then they'd better take their fingers off the triggers. It's a little unnerving when someone with an automatic rifle stares at your stuffed jacket like that.
I reached the destination station. I got off. Its not everyday that fears you didn't know existed surface. Mine did...when I got off to find the underground platform completely empty. The train left. I was looking for a way to get out of the dungeon. I found one. Only it was a narrow spiral stairway going down. That obviously wouldn't take me out. I wandered around a bit before I realized that I was indeed alone. There were no souls on 2 platforms and the sight of the narrow tunnels weren't quite comforting. I took the stairway down. Wasn't left with an alternative. It only got narrower and weirder. I would look suspicious if found there. My stuffed jacket and Asian skin wouldn't help. The image of the cop with the automatic rifle didn't do much good either. I'd only seen such places in the movies...narrow pathways painted white and blue. They lacked the sophistication that was so much a part of the city. Crude walls and eerie signs. Finally I saw the sign...'Fire exit' it said. Anything would do. I headed for it. 'Lifts' read an obscure board and showed an arrow pointing skyward. I wouldn't take it. Getting stuck in a lift underground wouldn't be very interesting. I turned left. To a narrow tunnel. Was this for real? That was a dead end. It intersected another tunnel at right angles. And a sign read 'do not enter.' Trains'. That helped neither. I had to take the lift. I traced my way back. I would put my hands up if caught I thought.
There were 2 lifts. Both looked dead. One of them had a small light glowing. A faint sign of life. I pressed the button. I had taken bad lifts before. None like this one. 'Stand away' said a sign. The lift door opened. The sight of a few human souls would've been comforting. A normal lift wouldn't be bad either. Anything. Anything but this one. Was this some kinda joke someone was playing on me? The lift was abnormally huge and had two doors. I got in warily. The door closed and the lift was moving now. That was when I noticed that a sign that said 'lower deck' was glowing. Was I going up or down? Physics seemed to not hold on this strange land. After an eon the lift stopped. The door opened and I could see roads and vehicles.
I was at crossroads holding a road map showing 2 Shepperton road. That was where the play was to be staged. The map made no sense. I didn't know where on the map I was. I was standing in front of a bar. People were drinking at tables laid by the road. Would they have heard about the play? Baring Street read a board. I found that on the map. I thought I was good with the coordinate system. Decartes didn't help immediately. I aligned the road on the map with the one on which I was standing. Well...2 Shepperton road was apparently where I was standing. That was when I read...Bar, Restaurant and Theatre said the board.
I entered the bar. I'd only seen them in the movies. Beautiful bartenders and surly men. Dim lights and bad music. Pretty women and ugly boyfriends. Empty glasses and yucky ashtrays. London falls.
"Theatre" read a sign above a small door beside a shelf. I headed for it. A woman stopped me. I had to buy the ticket. 3 pounds. I didn't have enough. Would 2 do? No it wouldn't. Can I draw some money from somewhere? I asked her. Yeah...you can draw it from there. It works like a hole in the wall but they won't charge you anything she said. The hole thing must be slang for what's called an ATM. Sounded demeaning. I spoke to a wrong woman then the right one. The right one was busy. She was pretty. She was serving her customers. Could I draw some money? Lemme be done with them she said....extremely sweet she was. Then this bad guy walks in. Could I draw some money? I asked him. He was straight out of the movies. The typical bartender. I was wondering how his jeans were holding on to him. You can take some drinks on top - the ticket woman told me. The play was presumably happening somewhere ón top. I mumbled something I don't remember. Do I look like am f**king doing nothing? The bartender asked someone who interfered when he was talking to me.
I drew 10 pounds. The minimum. Payed for the ticket and waited. I was expected to wait for a bell before I'd get in through that door. I ensconced myself on one of those high stools you sit on when you chatted with buddies and teased the bartender as you sipped your drink. It smelled yuck. The place. The drinks. A pretty girl took over the job of issuing tickets. There were a few walking in now. All of them in pairs. The pretty one looked like a friend of mine. She was sipping her drink as she sold tickets. You are very patient. Said this woman. I must've looked patient. I was dog tired and probably wasn't moving much. I hadn't noticed the technicalities of serving drinks before. There were many things there I couldn't name. Like a long brass handle kinda thing which looked very important.
The bell rang. I didn't hear. The door opened. I walked through.
A steep narrow stairway went up. I was beginning to feel a little uneasy about the crowd. There were posters of plays on the wall. Some of them wouldn't make it through the Indian censor board. A woman was checking tickets beyond a small door. She was the one who thought I was patient. When it was my turn she gave me this warm smile...the kind a bank manager gives someone with a bulky fixed deposit. The most patient soul on the planet she said. Man...was she serious.
Suddenly...it all made sense. A theatre above a bar. The 3 pound ticket and the offbeat theme. There were less then 60 chairs in this small dark room that I realized was the theatre. There was no stage. There were chairs on either side. I counted 4 in a row. there must've been about 7 such rows. a small round table with a jug of water and some cigarettes was placed at the centre of what i presumed would serve as a stage. Two chairs were placed towards the far wall at either corners. I sat on this chair on the second row and waited. Indeed everyone was carrying a drink. I was carrying this bagpack of mine with my empty lunch box and an umbrella in it. An alien.
It was to start at 7:30. It was past 7:45 when people were asked to switched off their phones. Lights went off... but for a faint blue light that glowed on the water jug. beautiful. I was hungry and had a bad headache.
A man in his late 50s and a burly woman presumably in her early 30s materialized. The woman sat on one of the chairs...the man stood behind the other. The play had begun...
It was strange. The actors did not acknowledge each other's presence. They alternatively spoke about unrelated matters. Mostly about their own lives. Before I knew it I found myself concentrating hard. Trying hard to make sense of it all. The man spoke about his childhood as the woman spoke about her child. They had nothing whatsoever to do with each other. Two plays for the price of one? No. these guys were serious. I realized that pretty early. They were excellent actors and I later learnt from my colleague that they weren't doing that for money. the play had been written and directed by the son of someone I had had a technical meeting with the morning before. I continued to concentrate...
Slowly the episodic snippets gave way to a coherant plot. Two unrealted stories were materializing. The woman was talking about her journey on an undergournd tube and the man about this arabic woman he met on a platform. Trains...tubes...platforms...the stories were imbued with the artefacts of the london nervous system. The pitch got shriller...the emotion more intense...the actors were unmistakably geniuses. The man spoke of love. The woman of fear. The best thing about being in love is that the world gets all clear...I was standing on the platform and there she was...that was the purest part of my life... The woman was effusive. While the man (possibly unintentionally) glorified himself in his narration the woman painted an earthy picture of herself. I shuddered more than a few times as the actors threw up surprises in the form of mistimed screams and unexpected changes in tone. Both the stories seemed to be coming to an end. There still was no sign of a connection. Before late indeed there was a connection in a very subtle way. A connection that I would've missed had I been concentrating a little less. It ended abruptly as the actors bowed...acknowledging each other's presence for the first time. I realized my headache had worsened.

Weird it was. I loved it.