Classic scripts, new writing and diverse subjects

This year’s edition of the NCPA’s Pratibimb Marathi Theatre Festival promises to highlight the best of contemporary Marathi theatre

August 04, 2017 09:29 pm | Updated June 12, 2021 07:20 pm IST

Feminist themes, whether overt or subtextual, will find expression in the plays that will be showcased at this year’s edition of the NCPA’s Pratibimb Marathi Theatre Festival, slated to take place over five days from today. The selection certainly boasts of a diversity of themes and theatrical approaches as classic scripts will rub shoulders with new writing, and traditional forms will share the same podium as more contemporary idioms. Returnees to the festival from the last edition includes prolific director Atul Pethe and actor Rajashree Sawant Wad, who have collaborated on the period drama, Samajswasthaya , produced by Natakghar, Pune.

Forever topical

One of the highlights of the festival is Aniruddha Khutwad’s revival of Mahesh Elkunchwar’s discursive zeitgeist saga Party . It is most famous in its 1984 Hindi film adaptation by Govind Nihalani, which lacked cinematic flair but brought Elkunchwar’s preoccupations to the fore at a time (circa 1975) when progressiveness in the arts, radical or otherwise, was soon to buckle under the yoke of Emergency-era oppression. In Khutwad’s play, Prajakta Pandhare plays the feminine figurehead — culture czarina Damayanti Rane, — who invites the art world’s jet set to her mansion for a soirée, in which these tensions bubble to the surface, and the hypocrisies rife in so-called enlightened spaces lie exposed.

Khutwad’s play arrives in Mumbai after performances in Pune, where it opened at the Jyotsna Bhole Sabhagruha in February. While still set in the turbulent 1970s, there is something very topical about the play — particularly in the liberal hand-wringing that still afflicts the arts cognoscenti, and the perils of an impending cultural crisis that many may be taking too lightly. Elkunchwar’s world-view then was still inchoate so it will be interesting to see if Khutwad upgrades the play’s sensibility enough to strike a contemporary chord with audiences.

Similarly, Pethe’s Samajswasthaya , set in the 1930s deals with subject matter that is still relevant today, if the Lipstick Under My Burkha imbroglio is any indication. The title of the play refers to the Marathi sex literacy magazine published by Raghunath Dhondo Karve (played by Girish Kulkarni) for almost three decades from 1927. Due to its uninhibited advocacy of the sexual freedom of women, it was a publication way ahead of its time, but Karve remains one of the most marginalised social pioneers in history, and faced several obscenity trials which the play trains its focus on. It is thus not biographical in the manner of Amol Palekar’s film on Karve — Dhyas Parva — but seeks to capture the essence of a progressive man blighted by primeval social attitudes. Sawant Wad plays his supportive wife Malati as an equal partner in his exploits and triumphs. Pethe also introduces B.R. Ambedkar into his narrative as one of the most vocal champions of the women’s rights who whole-heartedly supported Karve’s work. As the play moves from court case to court case, its style of presentation changes from naturalistic to the surreal, in an attempt to highlight the absurdity of the situation.

Feminist themes

Of course, the unbridled and unapologetic expression of feminine sexuality is one of the defining features of the deliriously popular Sangeet Bari , from Kali Billi Productions, via lavani performers like Shakunatala Nagarkar and Pushpa Satarkar. Its Hindi version was recently showcased at the NCPA’s Ananda Hindi Natya Utsav, and its inclusion here speaks of how the form itself transcends the barriers of language, and how its eroticism has a universal cadence. Alongside the performance of rare lavanis by actual exponents of the form, a commentary by writer-director duo, Bhushan Korgaonkar and Savitri Medhatul, contextualises the form for the uninitiated.

One of the contemporary plays at the festival is MH12J16 , from the Pune-based Prayog theatre group. Written by Vivek Bele and directed by Subodh Pande, the play won top honours at the Maharashtra State Marathi Theatre Festival, held earlier this year. It’s perhaps self-referential, as the protagonist is a young female playwright who is negotiating the cesspool of commercial theatre in Pune, while still attempting to hold on to her artistic integrity. The ‘play within the play’ is a chamber piece exploring human relationships, and Pande effects a kind of forum for change, in which the playwright enters into communion with both her director and her audience. The latter is represented in the person of a woman in her 50s, who is ostensibly a member of commercial theatre’s most faithful demographic and sits at what is the most central spot in a standard issue auditorium — seat J16. The title is a portmanteau of that seat number, and MH12, the car registration designation for Pune. This window into the tropes of theatre-making also includes social commentary, as the playwright is able to subvert the insidious hold her director has on her craft, by winning over a discerning audience.

Also in the itinerary is Rujuta Productions’ Ek Shoonya Teen , dubbed a ‘feminist murder mystery’. Loosely adapted from Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo , the play is directed by Sudeep Modak and Neeraj Shirvaikar, and concerns itself with the disappearance of a young woman some 20 years back, while foregrounding a motley crew of ‘interested parties’ who throw themselves into solving the whodunit. Adapted by Modak, the play operates as an indictment of Hindu patriarchy, and Swanandi Tikekar creates an unusual leading lady in the path-breaking mould of Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander, so memorably essayed by Rooney Mara.

Rounding up the selection are two more plays. Hey Ram depicts the Bohada mask festival held in Thane and Nashik during Ram Navami. It is based on a story by Sadanand Deshmukh, adapted for the stage by director Ram Daund, for the Vijigisha Foundation. The opening play, Mumbaiche Kawale , is a satire written by Shafaat Khan 40 years ago, and is among his most translated works. Presented by Awishkar Theatre, and directed by Priydarshan Jadhav, the farce unfolds in a village reeling from the effects of a natural calamity, that wipes out homes and livelihoods, but not the differences of dogma.

Pratibimb Marathi Natya Utsav: Marathi Theatre Festival starts today at 4 p.m. until August 9; more details at www.ncpamumbai.com

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