New Look and "Anything is Possible in Bombay Dreams"

As I hope you have noticed, I have redesigned the blog. For now it looks like all the old comments are not initially available, but if you click on an entry, they do appear. Also, I don't think I am done tweaking with the template yet, so expect some other--hopefully, mostly minor--changes. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

I was going to write a review of Bombay Dreams, but since I have spent most of my weekend computer time focusing on the site redesign, I think will not write a full review. In the end, the play was really good, and I think it did indeed suffer from the "dumbing down" it received for the the American audience. And, perhaps the reason that it didn't receive the positive reviews from the likes of the Times, the Post, or most of the other papers is because the show is quite unusual for Broadway. Bollywood does not make for traditional theatre, and it seems to me, many of the mainstream reviewers still look for that Broadway formula. I do agree though, with the criticism that the book is weak. The dialogue, even though it is a musical, is not that strong, and while there are some funny lines (how could there not be), the book needs to be rewritten.

But in the end, Bombay Dreams is AWESOME and it is bringing a Desi to the theater, a population not well known for voyaging to Broadway. Anyway, here is an interesting story from the New York Post discussing the shows producers attempts at trying to get Janet Jackson to join the cast.

I think Ayesha Dharker, who currently plays the role of Rani, is one of the better aspects to the show, I think Janet would not only fill the theater, I think it would add a whole other aspect to the mainstreaming of desi cutlure in America.

posted by sajit @ 2:38 PM