Staged chaos evokes state of Nepal

It is quite a feat for just two actors on a darkened stage to hold an audience spellbound for more than one hour. Yet, ‘के? Us.’ at Kausi Theatre does just that.

It is a thought-provoking but baffling work that leaves the audience questioning reality, the recurring metaphors in this intriguing and powerful dark comedy haunting us for days afterwards. 

The unsettling sound of deep breathing mingles with percussive drumming and a driving guitar that pulsates amidst a red glow, dimly illuminating shadowy structures charred by fire. A door leads to what is later revealed to be the ancestral home of two brothers which is ‘under renovation’.

One of the brothers Ashim (Bijaya Tamrakar) lives in Nepal caring for a supposedly comatose mother who is only depicted by a tree draped with red LED lights that circulate arterial blood corpuscles. Visiting him is a long-lost brother Aaryan (Eelum Dixit) who has returned (deported?) from America.

The state is littered with scattered paper trash, a run-down motorcycle chassis, a tattered sofa, and beat-up table and chairs. The stage is set for a sinister plot. Are the characters to be punished in perdition? 

It does not take long for the audience to grasp that this is an apocalyptic Nepal that, following absurdist traditions, could exist at any time in the future or the present day post-GenZ protest state.

Ashim and Aaryan Adhikari have reunited after 15 years. Ashim, the younger brother, has been burdened with the responsibility of taking care of their brain-dead mother. Aaryan, returns after having migrated to the US, where he married, had children, divorced, and lost everything. He has been at “minus 20 and is now back to zero”. 

The brothers have intense back-and-forths that expose their cynicism, the conversation tangentially alluding to Nepal’s unstable political landscape, migration, an economy in shambles, aging population, alcoholism and other mental health issues. Even the sibling argument about the relative merits of momos and burgers seems metaphorical.

The stagecraft uses lighting and sound effects brilliantly, transporting the audience to a surreal world in which Tamrakar and Dixit improvise their lines — no two shows are exactly the same, although the overall plot line is the same. 

In the first scene, Aaryan approaches the house tentatively, creeping rodent-like, and carrying a briefcase and an old-fashioned lantern. And at the end, Ashim screams, “I am chaos.” Is this the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end? 

At one point Aaryan seems perturbed by the sound of protest outside (the Gen Z movement?) and the taut atmosphere grips the audience with fear, shock, and apprehension of the recent death and destruction. 

Throughout the play there is the sound of breathing, as if through a ventilator, a thumping heartbeat, the morbid buzzing of flies and the glowing red LED veins -- signifying the presence of the comatose Aama. She is featured in a prologue-esque home video at the start of the play in which she reminisces about her two sons and rues her failing memory. 

The sound of breathing gets accentuated each time a brother gets closer to the tree, and it seems to fuel Ashim’s belief that Aama may be brain-dead but she is still among them. This play can go as deep as each individual in the audience wants it to go. 

The silenced, comatose mother could be Nepali Aama muted by an entrenched patriarchy. Or, she could be the symbol of a helpless country while her children fight over the ruins of what is left. The cake cutting is a delightfully Shakespearean subplot where we wonder if one of the brothers is going to poison, or knife, the other. The message is clear: how can we move forward if it is brother against brother?

The stairs signify political transition (elections, constitutional change, new coalitions) promising upward movement, but eventually lead to falls, leaving the nation exactly where it started, or worse. The mother’s terminal illness evokes an ailing state apparatus, hollowed out by corruption and deep-seated social decay. Yet the brothers cling to an irrational hope — instead of confronting the harsh truth and pursuing radical solutions, suggesting a blind faith in the mother. 

The brothers are lost. Aaryan climbs up stairs that lead nowhere, Ashim holds on to unrealistic hope that somehow Aama will get better. Tamrakar and Dixit deliver powerful performances, even more remarkable for the fact that they are improvising their lines as they go along.

When Aaryan breaks a wall and directly addresses the audience, spectators turn from being passive observers to active participants (‘the society’). The audience then become oglers in this drama, suddenly made self-aware of our role as the scrutinising, cavilling voyeurs that society represents. There is some discomfort of being watched and judged. 

By asking his brother what he is afraid of while pointing at the audience, Aaryan suggests that the brother's (and perhaps the character's core) fear is not just of the house, or the mother's illness, but of external judgment and societal censure.

After the stage goes dark, the applause takes some time. Audience members shuffle out in silence, minds reeling from the collective soul-searching they have just participated in. 

After ‘के? Us.’ the din at Teku intersection outside sounds different as we wait for our Pathao ride below the खरी tree where Shukra Raj Shastri was hanged in 1941 by the Rana regime.

‘के? Us.’

Kausi Theatre, Teku

Till 7 December (except 2 December)

Bookings: +977 9842156109, 9842574607