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An NCPA festival will stage seven plays ranging from the experimental to the commercial
PremiumMUMBAI :
Tepachu is a boy whose body does not grow," says Ajit Bhagat, whose Tepachu, Ek Tamasha will premiere at the sixth edition of the National Centre for the Performing Arts’ (NCPA’s) Pratibimb Marathi Natya Utsav starting Saturday.
Based on writer Uday Prakash’s story Tepachu, the play is about a village dwarf who herds cows and buffaloes for others. He grows to a “normal" size on their milk. He leaves for the city, where he starts work in a company and becomes a union leader. The union declares a strike, there is violence, and he gets injured.
“The aim of the play is to show that every man who is born, either big or small, is a worker," says Bhagat. This play is in the form of tamasha, a genre in Marathi theatre which features a prayer to the god Ganapati at the start and a mujra dance and kirtan (devotional songs) in the middle.
Pratibimb is the brainchild of Deepa Gahlot, NCPA’s head of programming (theatre and film), who decided to organize a Marathi theatre festival when she joined the organization in 2010. “Marathi theatre is rich in content, has different forms, both experimental and traditional, besides having many strong playwrights," she says.
The experimental movement in Marathi theatre blossomed under three playwrights, Vijay Tendulkar, Satish Alekar and Mahesh Elkunchwar, who moved away from the mythological, sangeet natak form to a naturalistic one. They wrote on subjects that were not discussed in society at the time.
Tendulkar’s Mitrachi Goshta showed a same-sex relationship between two women for the first time on stage. Alekar wrote Mahanirvan, a satire on Hindu death rituals.
This rich history has led to the emergence of a discerning audience. “The combination of strong, content-based plays that are able to communicate social ideas and an understanding audience makes the Marathi scene special," says Gahlot. “For example, Gujaratis prefer commercial, domestic dramas, while the Marathi audience can flit between the grim realities of life and mainstream drama."
Pratibimb will, therefore, host a cross-section of plays ranging from the experimental to the commercial. And, as Gahlot says, “Even if you don’t follow Marathi theatre throughout the year and you come and watch these seven plays, you will know what’s happening in the Marathi theatre scene."
One of the plays, Don Special, directed by Kshitij Patwardhan, is about the ethical dilemma—between love and duty—faced by a senior sub-editor of a newspaper. The play is based on a story by H.M. Marathe, but Patwardhan has retold it from his own perspective. The original story is about the conflict between two estranged male friends; Patwardhan has introduced a female lover. “What attracted me to the story was its inbuilt conflict," he says.
Another play that explores the nuances of a relationship is Samudra, based on a novel by Milind Bokil. In the novel, a man and a woman go to a seaside resort on an unplanned holiday, during which the woman confesses to having had an affair with one of her friends a few months ago. The confession leads to turmoil.
“The whole novel happens in one place between two people," says the director, Chinmay Mandlekar. “I had rarely read a novel in which there are only two active characters, although there are references to other people. Moreover, the content is very argumentative. There is one side and then there is the other side." There is no judgement in the play—the word samudra stands for the sea and the essence of the story is that people should attempt to be as “big as the sea".
A horror play by Pritesh Sodha, TEE is based partly on an oral story from Rajasthan and partly on the 1983 novel, The Woman In Black. It was conceived when Sodha heard that no female child had been born in a village in Rajasthan since the day a woman had been burnt on a stake there. Her crime: She only gave birth to girls. “This might not be true but people believe in this," says Sodha.
TEE will use some special effects with lights and set design to make the experience seem real. “The theatre has become passive like the movies," says Sodha. “People should experience horror. I am trying to make-believe in that space, so I am using the entire auditorium and not only the stage." With the help of special effects, the audience will be able to see the flitting apparitions, shadows, and feel the chill in the air. As Sodha says, “Don’t be scared if you see a ghost sitting next to you."
The NCPA Pratibimb Marathi Natya Utsav is on from 1-5 August at the NCPA, Nariman Point. Tickets (each play), ₹ 100, ₹ 150 and ₹ 200, available on in.bookmyshow.com and at the venue. For details, visit Ncpamumbai.com
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