It’s a pretentious world!
Chat rooms. Where Hydes are natural Jekylls. Where beasts have no qualms in being beauties. A highly pretentious world, this one. How does it affect the society, and what prompts people to hide behind false personas in chat rooms? A play, Nobody Knows I’m A Dog, to be presented by Dubai Drama Group from April 27 to May 1, takes a closer look at chat and Internet relationships
Photograph: Prashanth Mukundan
ASL, they would ask, and you, 60-year-old boorish male, you would write: 16, F, and smile coyly, as if that unseen smile would make up for the deceit.
You are in a chat room, and here the rule of the thumb, as every one knows and greatly appreciates today, is deception. Fraudulent relationship building at its crowing glory.
But why? Why should chat users hide behind false personas?
Dubai Drama Group probes an answer with its play by Alan David Parkins, Nobody Knows I’m A Dog, to be staged at Dubai Country Club from April 27 to May 1.
“It is a challenge,” says director Andrew Barley, who found the rather tough project coming his way because the DDG felt he was seasoned enough to handle such a mature play. The hard part of the play is to give faces and identity to the six characters, and in this, Barley is liberal in his interpretations.
On stage, without anything but very functional props, are six people, all deceiving each other as they key in messages to the newsgroup they have formed together. And the binding factor — the vital element that comforts them and keeps them going — is that they know they can’t be seen. They spin lies, make lies a celebration of their existence, and they connect with people — but will they succeed all the time, and in the long run?
“Though people use fantasy personas in cyberspace, their real personality eventually comes through,” observes Barley. The rather bold play, he says, will also let the audience understand the lies and deceptions that pass on in Internet relationships. “The play will not only entertain the Dubai audience, but also show them the impact the Internet has on people and how easy it is to reach out to others in a chat room, even when all the deceiving is unveiled.”
The six characters include a quote-spouting Plato, a male teenager, played by Darius Homayoun, whose terrific performance at the rehearsals has won his praises. Plato projects himself as a philosophical soul, always coming up with intelligent quotes, which unknown to others he furiously sources out from books of quotes. He likes talking to a middle-aged housewife, Nadine, played by Melissa O’Brien, who uses the Internet as means to escape the drudgery of every day life.
Ajay Mankani plays Horndog, an uneducated sounding dullard with overactive hormones who may not be as dumb as he lets on, while Stephen Price plays Phyllis, a man who takes the persona of a woman. Eric Dury takes on the character of Cheese, a curmudgeon who likes nobody but talks a lot to Cutie Pie, a self-effacing young woman who even in her fantasy world thinks she’s boring and unattractive. The role is played by Kerry Kienulf.
Every one makes passes at every one else, sometimes overt, sometimes angled.
Crisp, catchy dialogues — sometimes bold, so as to reflect chat room reality — are a highlight of the play. In fact, with the play unfoldling on the basis of the deceptive thought-processes of the protagonists — the kind they share with the others in the chat room/newsgroup — as against their body language, the actors have a dual challenge: To be two persons on stage at the same time.
The two-hour play is performed in the Middle East for the first time, and tickets are priced Dhs50 for members and Dhs60 for non-members.
– By a Staff Writer
