Back for Dinner

Acting is like cycling after a long,long time. Youre scared that youve forgotten how to do it,then you get on and start pedalling and before you know it.

Acting is like cycling after a long,long time. Youre scared that youve forgotten how to do it,then you get on and start pedalling and before you know it,youre flying, says Perizaad Zorabian,her voice jubilant over the phone from Kolkata,where her comeback vehicle,a play called Dinner with Friends is being staged. I hear that the Delhi show is sold out, she exults. Zorabian,whom cinema audiences will remember as the fresh-faced Jenny in Subhash Ghais Joggers Park (2003),is clearly flying high. Im back, she announces,In the past four years,I got married to an absolute dream man and had two wonderful children. Now,Im back to work on something I enjoy.

Fittingly,the play is about marriage. Its about four friends,two marriages and one divorce. The catchline is Can your marriage survive your best friends divorce? she says. Written in 2000 by American playwright Donald Margulies,Dinner with friends has won the Pulitzer Prize as well as a host of other accolades. It deals with two married couples who have been friends for years,their lives apparently smooth until one friend decides to end his marriage to find love elsewhere. They think they are on safe and solid ground and then,all of a sudden,the earth cracks opens under their feet. The divorce also forces the married couple to wonder,What if this happens to us, says Zorabian,who plays Maya opposite Joy Senguptas Vikram. The divorced couple is played by Tisca Chopra and Vinay Jain. The play is presented by Ballantine.

I had to re-learn and reconnect with my craft. It was like going back to school because there was no editor or director to call Cut. I was on my own, says Zorabian,who had studied Method Acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York in 1996 and began her acting career with a play called Unfaithful opposite Cyrus Broacha in 1997. Director Feroz Khan had approached her for Dinner with Friends three years ago but Zorabian was still on a break though she liked the script.

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When he got back in August this year,I asked my husband for a second opinion. He sent me a text,Sweetheart,it is stunning. Do it, recalls Zorabian. The play premiered in Mumbai in September,a day after her son turned one.

Khan has adapted Dinner with Friends to suit Indian sensibilities. Among his changes is making Maya and Vikram bankers,rather than food critics. The play follows a non-linear pattern,switching between the present and the past through flashbacks. Weve also kept the dialogues and actions casual, says Zorabian. She relates to Maya,the aggressive wife with a laidback husband. She is judgemental and opinionated but deep down,she is also the most frightened by her friends divorce, says Zorabian,I am a lot like that. The play has made me subconsciously want to do many things differently in my own marriage.

She has got similar responses from men and women in the audience. After marriage,the realities of life change. After this play,well take the romance to another level rather than let it slip downhill until it is too late, she says.

Will films follow her second innings on stage? This is step one. From next year,I will start reading scripts, she says.

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Back for Dinner

Acting is like cycling after a long,long time. Youre scared that youve forgotten how to do it,then you get on and start pedalling and before you know it.

Acting is like cycling after a long,long time. Youre scared that youve forgotten how to do it,then you get on and start pedalling and before you know it.