P-SAT chases comedy in a bizarre Princeton love trapezoid

"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Desis of Our Lives."

Such was the unusual yet auspicious beginning for Princeton South Asian Theatrics, a rag-tag troupe of two-bit actors, writers and techies who had neither the shame nor the pretense to know any better.

What started as an idea for a 10-minute skit soon ballooned into a one-act show, which then grew into a two-act play.

The unexpected success of these early ventures led to the creation of a full-fledged theater group that has since performed at places such as Rutgers University, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan.

P-SAT presents its third original comedy, "Chasing Anjali," this weekend at the Frist Campus Center Theater. The play follows the lives of Yaz, Vikram, Sameer and Anjali, all students at Princeton involved in a bizarre love trapezoid.

Yaz, a junior, originally comes to Princeton to be with Vikram, her high school flame. Vikram, a senior, must find a way to stand up to his parents, who disapprove of careers outside of medicine and dating outside of their subcaste.

Sameer, a freshman from India, struggles to adjust to American college life while fulfilling his parents' wishes to be a triple major in Electrical Engineering, Finance and Computer Science.

And Anjali? Anjali is the mysterious freshman whose spellbinding influence becomes the common denominator in all of their lives.

Along the way, "Chasing Anjali" satirizes intergenerational conflicts and adjustments to college life while highlighting the tensions caused by inter-faith relationships.

As in previous P-SAT plays, the characters originate from people everyone knows: clueless fathers, overbearing mothers, drunken uncles and status-conscious aunties.

As has now become standard practice for P-SAT, the entire process — from brainstorming ideas to the final production — has been characterized by alternating phases of chaos and inspiration, frustration and excitement, anxiety and euphoria.

Part of this disparity stems from the policy that all major P-SAT decisions are made by the entire group. And decisions, once made, can always be undone. There is no rule by committee, and the group scoffs at any display of specialized responsibility or authority.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Techies wax eloquent on matters of plot structure; writers offer advice on choreography; and seniors get cajoled into neglecting their theses to help build sets.

Another contributor to the freewheeling anarchy of P-SAT is that most members are close friends. Instead of addressing problems of intonation and blocking, rehearsals frequently degenerate into arguments about domain names and music selections. Meetings turn into birthday parties and casting decisions take all night.

Amazingly enough, everything somehow manages to come together during the final week of rehearsals. Urgency and the fear of humiliation become the primary sources of motivation.

Within a matter of days posters get put up, props get pulled together, and programs get printed. Though the play is never polished in the spring, audiences do not seem to mind. They understand that we are economics majors and pre-meds, not thespians and playwrights. Most of all, they can recognize and relate to the various personalities that we portray on stage.

So, if you're looking for refined discourses on love or somber reflections on the unbearable lightness of being, then stay away from Frist this weekend.

On the other hand, if you enjoy watching original student theater with all its concomitant dimples and blemishes, go check out P-SAT and its production of "Chasing Anjali."

There will be three performances of "Chasing Anjali" in the Frist Theater tomorrow through Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the Frist Ticket Office daily between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. A limited number of reservations can be made at www.psatweb.com.