The Breadman Came Calling
By José Lourenço
joselourenco1...@gmail.com
--
Play review: The Breadman’s Calling.
Written & directed by Isabel Santa Rita Vas
--
How do we change as day morphs into night? How does a criminal’s mind
work? Why do some like soft pao and others prefer katre pao or the
kankonn? These colorful questions featured in a play on the humble
Goan poder - The Breadman’s Calling, staged by the Mustard Seed Art
Company in Margao and Panjim in the first week of December.
The play was written and directed by Isabel Santa Rita Vas, a veteran
playwright whose troupe has staged over 55 plays so far. An
unspecified object has been stolen from the house of Bostiao Mendonsa,
the town baker (played by Ryan Semelhago). A local lass Joella
(Efigenia de Santana Miranda) decides to play Sherlock Holmes. There
are several suspects―the town lawyer Albert (Kiran Bhandari), the
baker’s delivery boy Kistu (Yulian Pinto) who pines for Joella, and
even Mersu (Celsa Fernandes), Joella’s mother who works as a freelance
‘flying’ cook.
Isabel gives a magical twist to her Goan whodunit thriller by
exploring the alter-egos of her characters. As he kneads dough in the
wee hours, Kistu asserts himself as ambitious Christy, Joella (who
detests the nickname ‘Vency’ given by her mother) sees herself as
Venezuela, yearning to sing. She recites haunting lines by poet Salil
Chaturvedi on the mystique of the night. Her mother Mersu the cook
transforms into the sensual Morgiana, who dances in the night to rise
above her wretched past. Albert broods over the criminal mind; the
lawyer of the day is Aristo, the philosopher of the night. Bostiao the
now wealthy baker thinks of his long-dead hardworking and stern
mother, yet the memory of the ugliness of her hands terrifies him.
The poder inhabits a transition space in Goan time―the space between
night and day. So in the play, even the alter-ego of the day is
explored. The noises of the typical Goan day with its honking and
hawkers give way to the darker peaceful sounds of the night and on to
the wee morning with its chime of devotional bells, the early morning
jogger, fresh fish hurried to the market and the most distinct sound
of the Goan morning- the ponk ponk of the baker’s boy. The passers-by
on the streets were played by Vanessa d’Souza and Kyra Semelhago.
A second theft occurs. As Joella dips her hand into Kistu’s bread
basket she discovers a Chinese vase, an antique from Bostiao’s house,
and he becomes a prime suspect. But Joella suspects Kistu has been
falsely framed, and proves that the crafty Albert had played this
dirty trick. Albert/Aristo yields to the darker side in his quest to
understand the criminal mind and becomes a diabolical schemer himself.
It is he who has carried out the first theft―of a seemingly worthless
portrait of a traditional poder―from Bostiao’s house and sold it to a
museum, just to exercise his evil mind, and to discredit Kistu the
poder-boy in the eyes of Joella, who Albert secretly lusts for. Joella
cracks the case open and the portrait is recovered. But Bostiao goes
further and actually cracks the portrait open to reveal a hidden
diamond ring belonging to his parents. He benevolently gifts the ring
to Kistu, who proposes to Joella and everyone lives happily ever
after.
Under Isabel Vas’ direction, there is impeccable English where
desired, but the native ‘Konklish’ and multilingualism of Goan folk is
also delivered delightfully in the lines of the characters. ‘Itu
beginu?’ queries the poder, meaning ‘So early?’ The ‘u’ at the end of
almost every word is a peculiarity of the Sashtti (Salcete) dialect.
‘Bor mure tum, malcriad!’(you are quite a rude chap!) shows how
Portuguese words were absorbed into Konkani. The play of words like
‘Pulis-bulis’ ‘Investigate-binvestigate’ are derived from such usage
in Konkani, where the first letter of a word is replaced by ‘b’ and
repeated. Quaint English idioms like ‘Potatoes are not boiled twice’
are probably more used in Goa than anywhere else. There is a clever
play of words in the title too – Is it also about the Breadman’s
calling in life?
Beside his ‘original’ katre pao, poie, bakri and kankonn that Kistu
takes great pride in, he also carries ‘duplicate’ bread in his basket,
pao that has been sourced from other bakers, possibly the ubiquitous
migrant bakers from Goa’s neighbouring states. The times are changing.
‘Te poder gele, te undde kabar zale’ is inevitably quoted, an old
proverb, often related to the passing of Portuguese colonial rule.
It was a delightful play, made pleasant on the eye by sets designed by
Norman Tagore, with a poder’s bicycle at centre stage. Vamona
Navelcar’s sketch on the play brochure shows the poder of yesteryear
carrying the bread panttlo on his head, walking along with staff in
hand, many decades before the bicycle came along.
The Mustard Seed Art Company, founded in 1987, stands out as a
pioneering and vibrant theatre group that has seen a whole generation
of youn