A tribute to Bertolt Brecht should be different from the usual eloquent ode; it should follow certain set patterns, patterns that the man himself used to revolutionise proscenium theatre. Bechara B.B. fulfils the criteria — almost. There is no linear plot: the play, instead, is a patchwork quilt of Brecht’s many plays, major and minor, and explores how their political messaging was relevant to his personal journey from a Germany overrun by the Nazis to an America afflicted by McCarthyism. Bechara B.B. includes song and dance routines, like the one about the fragility of a woman’s reputation, from On The Infanticide Marie Farrar. There are heart-wrenching scenes from The Jewish Wife — about Jewish spouses of German men in Nazi cities — transposed on India’s current political landscape as Musalmaan Bibi.

But the acting is too trite, the political statements too clever. The action moves at a breathless pace, from archival videos showing Brecht testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee to stunning visuals of the night sky as Galileo laments that blind superstition will always render scientists like him outcasts, leaving spectators with no time to reflect upon the significance of a just-concluded scene.

Where Bechara B.B. knocks it out of the park is in its deft employment of technology. Apart from the riveting use of video footage, the coordination between the actors during the dance sequences carries the audience along in its rhythm. Each inch of the stage is utilised to perfection, with spotlights occasionally illuminating a bulletin board carrying a few apt words or an illustration that makes one think. The musicians are superb; the singers get very little wrong, even though they are simultaneously acting and running to their precise positions.

While a certain degree of erudition is expected from a play about Bertolt Brecht, where Suman Mukhopadhyay misses the mark perhaps is in elevating Bechara B.B. from an “organ[s] of mass communication” to a cerebral classroom lecture.