It’s a truth that is almost universally acknowledged that truly home-grown Indian playwrights are now rather thin on the ground. There doesn’t seem to ever have been a surfeit of writers on the theatre scene, but the few who had held court did so with a degree of influence that seems to elude the contemporary bunch. Theatre-making is now a tumultuously collaborative process, and several authors grabble for a piece of the ownership pie. The so-called prolific playwright is an even rarer breed. It is therefore heartening that Yugandhar Deshpande, a playwright all of 25 years of age, has been quietly making inroads into the world of Marathi theatre. In a span of just over a week, three of his plays have been a part of the city theatre line-up. The Saturday past saw his Bail Melay performed at Sitara Studio, and on Monday evening, Agdich Shunya was showcased at the Yashwant Natya Mandir in Matunga, where his third running production, Absolute , will be staged next Monday. These are not premieres; the plays have been on the radar for a while. Their reach is still a moving target, and their cultural impact yet to be assessed, but these beginnings certainly speak of a potentiality of some significance.
In the plays, cultural dissonances and existential crises jostle for space in narratives that are part nostalgic, part aspirational. Both Bail Melay and Absolute feature young couples jousting with modernity. In the first, which has been directed by Lalit Prabhakar, a small-town couple (played by Vikas Patil and Aarti Wadagbalkar) who are new to Mumbai attempt to adopt the city’s mores and adapt to the trappings they now find themselves in. The world of malls and multiplexes become an expanse of urban desolation in which their identities can be subsumed. “What they perceive as modern and what is actually modern, is what the confusion is all about,” says Deshpande. They find themselves drawn to easy materialism and an alternative morality. “Having an extra-marital affair, for instance, is considered cool.” Deshpande presents his protagonists as caricatures lost in a big bad city in order to drive his brand of satire home. The title alludes to a bull that has been tamed, in the same way as the couple’s countryside manners have given way to the affectations of the city.
Deshpande hails from Pandharpur, the destination for thousands of pilgrims during yatra seasons, but otherwise a quintessential small town. He is an engineering graduate and has been in Mumbai for half-a-dozen years. These are credentials he shares with the protagonist of Absolute , played by Padmanabh. The play is produced by Culture Shoq, an entertainment company run by Sudeip Nair, at whose erstwhile community space The Hive Deshpande worked as a programme curator. It has been directed by Mandar Deshpande and opened at the NCPA Centrestage festival last year. Padmanabh’s ‘local to global’ journey brings him close to city-dweller Gauri Nalawade, whom he marries. His long-suffering mother in the village is played by a stoic Rama Joshi. The two worlds are contrasted visually and behaviourally. I had written about how Nalawade’s character becomes an overt caricature of a vacant and interminable ennui that is supposedly modern living in the digital age and how Absolute is a play that doesn’t adequately resolve its dichotomies. Its unsatisfying indictment of modernity seems more like a chip on the writer’s shoulder than an astutely observed portrait. Says Deshpande, “I have also struggled to adjust in the city, as have others. With time I am understanding everything around me more and more. These plays reflect my own progression in a way.”
The third play, Agdich Shunya, directed by Ravi Lakhe and featuring a bravura turn by Akshay Shimpi, feature two middle-class office workers whose lives exist in a kind of uneasy equilibrium. They are from the same social backgrounds, both are trained engineers and part-time theatrewallahs (like Deshpande himself), they share a commute and an office. When one of them is promoted at work, this unsettling counterpoise is shattered. The premise certainly smacks of an interesting existential dilemma. Taken together, these works seem to represent a semi-autobiographical oeuvre , something that is almost always in danger of becoming too indulgent. Yet, given Deshpande’s youthful veneer, they could also give shape to a veritable Bildungsroman spanning several plays. We wait and watch.
The writer is a playwright and stage critic
