Ventures Theatre’s latest play ‘The Note’ is a howdunnit murder mystery

Susanto Banerjee's new play, The Note, seeks not just to thrill its audience but also to make them ponder about human behaviour

Susanto Banerjee, a corporate guy-turned-playwright, views his art and life through the prism of human behaviour. We play different roles every day, he says, reminiscent of the famous ‘All the world’s a stage’ monologue in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. We behave differently with different people on different occasions, depending on the role we play. This is what, Susanto says, an actor tries to do on stage. “Theatre is so powerful concerning behaviours. Why can't we use theatre and make it an experiential tool to learn about behaviour?”

His latest play, The Note, too, is a part of this study on human behaviour. It is, on the surface, a murder mystery. Susanto he does not just want to thrill but also make the audience think. That is why The Note will not be a whodunit; it will be a howdunit.

A murder ravages the tranquillity of a family comprising Ramni, Pralay, and their little girl, Munni. The audience will get to know the murderer early. The rest of the play, with eight characters, will elaborate on the circumstance of the murder, trying to answer an important question: is the murderer guilty? Susanto wrote The Note a year and a half ago, inspired by a Somerset Maugham play. He liked the beginning of the Maugham play. So, he took that, added a few characters, tweaked their storylines, and changed their trajectories and locations.