Dummies’ Filter Coffee is a fine mix of music, dance, theatre and humour

A dream begins where another ends. In Dummies’ play Filter Coffee (story, script and direction by Sreevathson), the first dream of Sahasra, Satvik and Priya ends abruptly, when they are laid off by the IT company they work for.

Satvik is a tenant in Ramaswamy Iyer’s (Sridhar) house. Ramaswamy runs a coffee shop, where he serves South Indian filter coffee. Sahasra and Priya move into the spare room in Satvik’s rented portion, convincing the traditional, orthodox Ramaswamy that they are moving in just for convenience until they find another job. One day, Sahasra sings ‘Bhagayatha lakshmi baramma’, while scouring the net for jobs. Satvik sings along with her. Priya (S. Aishwarya) dances to Satvik’s jatis. Dream two begins here.

The youngsters hit upon the idea of a band, which they name Filter Coffee. The platform for their band is Ramaswamy’s staid coffee shop. They repaint the dull shop, and it becomes a draw with the young and old. With sales soaring, Ramaswamy is a happy man. But the band decides to move out of his house and stop playing in his shop, because they are now in great demand. They rent a large office, accept bookings and have no time to call their own. But success brings with it friction and ego clashes. The band finally realises that as long as music remains a soul-satisfying art, it brings peace. But when it becomes a commercial quest, naturally, all the problems of any commercial venture surface. The choice is theirs — do they want to go commercial, or not? It is the age-old question — art for art’s sake, or art as a paying proposition.

Satvik (Dakshin) did a great job, whether he was worrying, taking the jibes of Sahasra sportively, looking goofy when he was courting his sweetheart, or subdued when the band lost a music contest. R. Gayatri as Sahasra was terrific, with her singing and her droll banter. The dance segments — classical, modern and folk (including kavadi and silambam) were well-choreographed by Shruti. Music by Dakshin, who happens to be the grandson of music director V. Dakshinamurthy, was delightful.