This Way To Vegas

The Fantasy Island

• The first, live, Rs 25-crore Broadway-style Bollywood musical
• Impressively choreographed, giant screens, moving sets
• Fire, hailstorms on stage, underwater effects, aerial stunts
• Wafer-thin plot, cliched script, passable acting
• Tickets at Rs 1,000-6,000; a new venue for the multiplex class

***

Flamboyant Bollywood kitsch now has a new address—Gurgaon. Crisscrossing laser beams reach out nearly a kilometre before you land at the giant gates of the Kingdom of Dreams, a sprawling, six-acre complex that styles itself as a desi Disneyland. Enter to find yourself in the midst of a dazzling mishmash of styles and symbols—Rajasthani haveli meets Khajuraho-style sculpture, sleeping Buddhas meet lotus ponds and Mughal domes—and proceed to Culture Gully, a boulevard with a false ceiling that turns night into day by making you walk under a cloud-strewn blue sky in the dead of night. From this five-star Dilli Haat (cuisine from 14 states is served here), you travel through Spiritual Gully, and finally reach Nautanki Mahal, venue for the centrepiece of this surreal, opulent experience—Zangoora: The Gypsy Prince, a musical that mimics Bollywood in live 4-D.

Inside the 850-seater theatre, Zangoora, the lanky lad, played by TV star Hussain Kuwajerwala, descends as if from the skies, mounted atop a giant eagle, suspended in the air with the support of wires that loop down from the ceiling. As you watch, transfixed, he slides down to the stage to break into an energetic jig to thumping music with eighty fellow gypsies, all moving rapidly to the melody of Baawre Baawre, a recent dance number. The taalis and wolf-whistles from the obviously well-heeled, expensively dressed crowd, with a sprinkling of foreigners, become louder as the dancers break into sassy renderings, remixed by Shankar Ehsaan Loy, of Choli ke peeche kya hai and Beedi jalaile and the retro ‘gypsy’ hit, Mehbooba mehbooba, all choreographed by Shiamak Davar and Glen D’Mello.

Energy Surplus: The Nautanki Mahal, the venue for the musical

A show like this obviously doesn’t rely too heavily on its actors; it’s the nameless, faceless dancers that take the drama forward, literally in leaps and bounds. As for the story, Javed Akhtar’s authorship of it notwithstanding, it’s just another run-of-the-mill, textureless, good-wins-over-evil plot. What provides the sparkle in this Rs 25-crore production are the imaginative, extravagant costumes by Neeta Lulla and the breathtaking special effects. Defending the wafer-thin plot, Zangoora’s director and co-producer Viraf Sarkari of Wizcraft Entertainment says, “It is the first production, and, therefore, we have consciously focused on a simple yet thrilling storyline. This has given us a platform to experiment with the technology of theatre.”

Bombay’s cinema has inspired big stage shows before, for instance Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Bombay Dreams, which opened in London in 2002, fusing western melodies with Bollywood sound. In recent years, Neemrana Music Foundation’s production of If I Were King also attempted a larger-than-life Bollywood imagery, fusing it with traditional opera. However, Kingdom of Dreams takes it all to a grander, more opulent level, and prefers to keep its offering exclusively Bollywood. Enthuses Sarkari, “Today, the world over there is a craze for Bollywood, people in the West are learning Bollywood dances to perform at their weddings. Zangoora is all about the unique Bollywood style of storytelling and popular dancing.”

What’s clearly on offer here is a new venue for the multiplex class, eager for varied forms of popular entertainment, with enough disposable income to snap up tickets priced at Rs 1,000-6,000, and some to spare for a drink or two at the well-stocked bar on the premises or the offerings at Culture Gully. It has won itself some fans. Says Random House editor-in-chief Chiki Sarkar, who was in the audience recently, “I haven’t seen anything like this on stage in India. In terms of its slickness, ambition and scale, it’s certainly comparable to an international musical production.” The organisers, Wizcraft and the Apra group, claim many others are lapping up the experience. Says Sarkari: “Our customers are diverse, from foreign and domestic tourists to regular Delhi ncr residents and big corporates who want to host a fun evening.” An old kind of fun in a glittering, opulent new bottle.