In a story that pits human
nature against love and chance, a landscape of betrayal and redemption
comes to life in the red-light district of Bombay, India. One very
powerful eunuch, Top Rani, operates an illicit lottery through his
brothel, and when a gambler who is deeply in debt makes an unexpected
wager, the stakes become life and death. Can a fortune-teller and a
ten year-old girl beat Top Rani at his own game?
PLAYWRIGHT’S
NOTE:
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a monster is “a
person of unnatural or extreme ugliness, deformity, wickedness, or
cruelty.” By this definition, Top Rani, a eunuch, should
be deemed a monster simply because he deviates from the usual course
of nature. But what makes Top Rani monstrous is not his physical
deformity. It is his wisdom.
Top Rani
believes that his castration was destined, the act of a cruel God. He
also forces everyone else to believe in, and operate under the rules of, that
same God. He justifies his own wrong doings by pretending to be a mere
instrument in the fulfillment of destiny. In other words, his conscience
has been replaced by logic, a monstrous wisdom.
It is this aspect of his personality that reminds us that he is not
an imaginary being who can be exoticized. He lives and breathes
in the red light district of Bombay amidst the pimps, prostitutes,
taxi drivers, timber merchants, restaurant owners, jewelers, beggars,
and small time gangsters who inhabit that area. He may have once
been an ordinary boy made of old-fashioned skin and bone, and he may
now be viewed as an immoral beast, but the fact remains that he is
as real as the 300,000 children who work in the sex trade in present-day
India.
The Matka King premiered in October 2003 at the Arts Club Theatre,
Vancouver. It
was workshopped and given public readings at the following play development
events: ReACT: new plays in progress, 2002 & 2003 (Arts Club
Theatre, Vancouver), CrossCurrents Festival, 2002 & 2004
(Factory Theatre, Toronto), On the Verge, 2002 (National Arts Centre,
Ottawa), and Playwrights’ Week 2005 (The Lark Play Development
Center, New York).
PRODUCTION NOTES:
The Arts Club Theatre (2003)
Director: Rachel Ditor
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