For long, the hybrid genre of horror-comedy was seen as an outsider by the respective worlds of horror and comedy. The field evolved over the years and carved out a niche for itself. We wonder what common side of visual grammar fills the gap between chills and cackles. Isn’t it their resolve to stay excessive? When Mike Tyson punches a stag at a stag party in The Hangover for having his pet tiger in a hotel bathroom, you laugh at the deviant plotline wrought with excesses. You’d notice a parallel on closely looking at how or why we react to the ghost claiming young males in the film, Stree. The genre, however, penetrates deeper when performed on stage.

Para ab normal, a genre-blending play, tells the story of a game show. The show hunts for the creepiest person alive on the face of the earth. The host goes on from one contestant to another, as they describe some of the most inhuman and horrendous acts they have committed. “And the audience laughs,” says Nishil Kamalan, director of the piece. Kamalan believes that horror and comedy are also similar in the reactions they incite: “Both induce instant responses unlike other fields that may prompt analyses. When viewers laugh at something sinister, we make them conscious of the action that’s making them laugh, and often it’s met with an ‘Oh’.’”