Unmasked is about an expat living in Singapore named Nakul Chandrakant Dalvi who has not visited his hometown of Pune (India) in the last two years ever since Covid-19 affected air travel. In Unmasked, Nakul explores the idea of ‘home’ and asks himself difficult questions about his own identity in the backdrop of living on this little red dot. Should he go back home to see his parents, risking his employment status, putting at stake his career and his child’s education? Is he Singaporean enough, and most importantly – is he Indian enough?
One expat, one PR and one Singaporean Indian—all bring a unique and nuanced performance relating to the idea of home and belonging. Come and join Nakul on this journey of self-identity, expat life and finding a home for himself. Unmasked is a play in English, devised and directed by Sharul Channa.
About the Director: Sharul Channa
Sharul Channa has been a full-time stand-up comedian for the last 10 years and has performed to packed houses all over Asia and Australia. She also participated in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2016 and 2017.
Channa is formally trained in theatre from Lasalle, College of the Arts, which was the reason for her continued passion for acting despite having a flourishing stand-up career. Over the past few years, Channa has proven her ability to use comedy to shed light on important, and sometimes neglected, social issues in Singapore. In 2017, she deconstructed misogyny at Indian weddings with Sharul Weds Sharul, which was performed to sold-out theatres at The Esplanade and at The Darwin Festival in Australia. In 2018, she cycled through multiple characters in Disco Sheela and Other Indian Superwomen, a show that left “listeners breathless with laughter, and in the next moment, unable to breathe because the truth hurts” (The Straits Times, LIFE!).
More recently, in a performance that earned her a Best Actress nomination at The Straits Times LIFE! Theatre Awards, Channa highlighted the plight of women living below the poverty line in Singapore, in her landmark solo 2019 piece, Crazy Poor Sita. She has performed four one-woman theatre shows: Crazy Poor Sita (Nominee, Best Actress, The Straits Times, Life! Theatre Awards 2020), Disco Sheela and Other Indian Superwomen, Sharul Weds Sharul and Am I Old? which was recently performed on Zoom while Singapore was under lockdown during Covid-19. The 8 shows of Am I Old?, performed in collaboration with AWARE, received rave reviews in the Straits times and was translated and performed in both Tamil and Hindi.
Channa also performed three shows of her one-woman show, Co-Weird Times virtually on Zoom during the Covid-19 lockdown. Since the easing of lockdown rules, Channa performed two live stand-up shows at the Capitol theatre in December 2020; one live show at the Wild Rice theatre in January 2021 and multiple house-full runs of 2021’s Women’s Day stand-up special Cleavage Murukku Crusher and Other Jokes by Sharul Channa.
Amit Arun Joshi plays the lead role as Nakul Chandrakant Dalvi. Joshi directed and acted in multiple plays, staged over 50 shows of the Marathi play ‘Chandrapurchya Junglat’ across Maharashtra, and appeared in Indian TV dramas.
His passion for acting continued when he migrated to Singapore, despite having a full-time job in the banking sector. Joshi won the best actor award for his role in two plays that ran during the Hindi theatre festival Dastak 2018 and over the years, acted in numerous plays that ran in both Hindi and English. Joshi also bagged roles in several Channel 5 TV dramas.
In 2019, Joshi came onboard as cast member of Channa’s play Papa, which inspired him to explore new frontiers —script writing for Papa’s sequel, Mumma.
Unmasked Show Details
Written and Directed by: Sharul Channa
Cast:
Veena Bangera
Priyashree Deorukhkar
Amit Arun Joshi
Show Dates & Timings:
20th October 2021, 8pm
21st October 2021, 8pm
22nd October 2021, 8pm
23rd October 2021, 3pm & 8pm
24th October 2021, 3pm
Venue:
Drama Centre Black Box,
(National Library Building Level 5)
100 Victoria St.,
Singapore 188064
Ticket price: $40 standard
Ticketing details: Unmaskedtheplay.peatix.com
Language: English
