Politically Correct

It’s a serious play,so Kornbluth needed to tackle it with humour. “It has turned into a comic monologue—but with many parts that are serious as well. I think this will be clear to audiences as soon as I take the stage,as I am obviously very funny-looking,though in a handsome sort of way,” says the actor,his humour intact.

Alone on stage dressed in casual jeans and a shirt,surrounded by props like a video screen with streaming of Presidents Reagan,Carter and Kennedy and scenes from the US,Kornbluth takes the audience through many chapters of his life— from graduating from college several decades late to his present fight to stop global warming. In the process,Kornbluth reaches into the heart of the apathetic common man who wants a better world but won’t lift a finger to get it. “One excuse is that we don’t know enough. The play shows that if somebody like me can become an active citizen,anybody can,” he says.

Citizen Josh,which premiered in 2007,has held more than a hundred shows across the US till now. India is its first foreign stop. “I am desperately reading books and talking to Indian friends to incorporate Indian references to the play,” says Kornbluth,for whom this is a first time in Asia.