Chocolate Krishna- Taking comedy beyond MMKR

Tickets to the Crazy Creation drama Chocolate Krishna

I have seen almost all the stage plays by Manohar, S. V. Sehkar, Crazy Mohan, Kathadi Ramamurthy, Cho, Varadarajan, Y. G. Mahendran and Visu.  Chocolate Krishna is the best of the best for comedy.  Chocolate Krishna is a Tamil stage drama from Crazy Creations.  Crazy Creations is the stage group run by Crazy Mohan (http://www.crazymohan.com/) and Maadhu Balaji. Chocolate Krishna takes comedy delivery to another plateau.  It excels in almost every phase of a stage drama- delivery, dramatization, confusion, characterization, language, wit and above all - simplicity.  

Chocolate Krishna is about a typical Tamil middle-class household with common problems.  Maadhu is the breadwinner and a firm believer in Lord Krishna.  He believes that putting his trust in Krishna will solve all his misfortunes.  The story is about how the family fortunes are transformed by the arrival of a guest and how they deal with it.  The misfortunes of a normal family are turned it into a sequence of hilarious events.  Chocolate Krishna is all about the dialogues and the interaction between all the main characters.  The dialogues were all punchlines.  The best one's used the nuances of Tamil and their anatomy in English.  For my American friends, this drama would resemble the popular TV serial 'Friends' for it's ability to turn misfortune into comedy. 

Michael Madana Kama Rajan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Madana_Kama_Rajan) was the epitome of comedy in Indian movies.  It has been regarded as a landmark in Tamil cinema.  Chocolate Krishna matched this one-for-one.  MMKR had Kamal Hasaan.  Chocolate Krishna has Maadhu Balaji. Kamal Hasaan delivered dialogues in different accents.  Maadhu delivered instant reactions punchlines, like it was the first time he had heard the words.  It did not look rehearsed, even thought it was the 400th screening. 

Crazy Mohan's script flowed so well and effective that even a sub-five year-old was rolling with laughter.  Unlike movies, the presentation has to be flawless and continuous, which it was.  The jokes were counters comments or take on the Tamil words.  Also Tamil phrases were modified to work with the situation and to create a climax.  The story moved so fast that you were still rolling from the first one when the next arrives.  At some points, 5-6 comic situations were occurring almost simultaneously. At the end there was a nice moral attached to the whole drama.  This was way better than a DJ playing on the Gramophone or dancing to a live rock-n-roll music session at a 5* hotel.

Deepak Shankar and A. S. Aiyar with Crazy Mohan

We were fortunate to get front-row seats for this events, thanks to my father-in-law, Gopalie and Crazy Creations.  We were the "Extra Chairs" in the sold out show. You can see the seat number on our entry ticket.  Both Mohan and Balaji are extremely humble and polite personalities. I also found out they are brothers.  But their personalities on stage are quite the opposite.  Maadhu is always jumping off the walls, while Mohan is calm and composed.

This is a must for all and everyone that likes a rolling laugh and is familiar with Tamil.  It is unfortunate that there are no new Stage groups rising up to continue this glorious traidition.  Crazy Crations has finished 33 years of existence.  At this rate, Tamil drama will disappear within our generation.

Happy (2012) New Year everyone.

Vaishnavi, Deepak, Aiyar with Maadhu Balaji of Chocolate Krishna