At its now familiar roosting spot at the Mumbai Marathi Sahitya Sangh (MMSS), the Drama School Mumbai (DSM) has been assiduously organising events in which theatre personalities engage in spirited conversations with each other — a public tête-à-tête, as it were. These are interactive sessions that occasionally attract large numbers, like the talk featuring Natak Company’s Alok Rajwade in conversation with the reclusive auteur Mohit Takalkar of Pune’s path-breaking Aasakta group, in which Takalkar spoke so ominously about the veritable death of theatre. The events are part of the Rekha Sabnis Memorial Series, named for the accomplished theatre actor who passed away in 2016. The personalities have mostly been drawn from the world of Marathi theatre, with occasional detours like the hugely gratifying session with English theatre doyenne Shernaz Patel, for instance.
Documenting craft
The talks are recorded and duly uploaded to the school’s YouTube channel — another much-needed archive in the service of theatre posterity. The guiding light behind the events is the playwright Ramu Ramanthan. Of late, actor Akshay Shimpi has taken over curatorial reins. This weekend, Vikrant Mahalle will be in conversation with Chinmay Mandlekar, the NSD-trained actor who has made inroads into the world of theatre, film and television. His successful plays include Bechaki, Albatya Galbatya and Sukhanshi Bhandto Aamhi . January saw the premiere of his latest production, the family comedy Vacuum Cleaner , which is toplined by Ashok Saraf and Nirmitee Sawant.
To the mainstream, as it the case with most theatre practitioners who resist crossing over, Sabnis is known by her limited work in cinema — Amrish Puri’s bed-ridden wife in Shyam Benegal’s Bhumika, or M.K, Raina’s wife in Awtar Krishna Kaul’s 27 Down. To theatre aficionados, she is the formidable actor who came to the forefront during what is widely considered the renaissance of Hindi theatre, and starred in plays like Satyadev Dubey’s 1964 production of Mohan Rakesh’sAshadh Ka Ek Din, which debuted in 1958 and has long had the reputation of being first Modern Hindi play.
In Mani Kaul’s 1971 film based on the same play, the smouldering Sabnis stood out in a cast of stalwarts. The DSM’s press release describes Sabnis as a “one-woman theatre army, who ran theatre group Abhivyakti from her house, taking care of sets, costumes, bookings, transport, tickets as well as acting and directing.” She was also one of the key forces behind the DSM’s current association with the MMSS that has seen it through five years of theatre training. They are unlikely allies, with DSM’s focus on collaborative and exploratory work, with a pedagogical skew towards physical devised theatre, even as MMSS remains one of the regular (and busy) venues for the Marathi commercial theatre circuit.
The lecture series, as well as especially curated performances, seeks to bridge the gap in many ways between two disparate worlds. Off classroom hours, the hall of teaching in the fifth floor of the MMSS building morphs into the Purandhare Hall, a cultural venue in its own right, easily converted into a black box with all the cutting-edge trappings for live performance.
Dramatic agenda
For those looking to make a cultural outing of an entire day, an early showing of Gillo Repertory’s Mister Jeejeebhoy and the Birds at the St. Andrew's Centre for Philosophy and Performing Arts in Bandra might well be the perfect start. This is one of their most delightful if lesser staged productions, never cloying in the least despite the sentiment it might evoke, full of the wondrous mystery and heart-pounding dread that make up modern childhoods. Post the talk with Mandlekar, a short taxi ride away at Colaba’s Si Bambai, kathak exponent Ashavari Majumdar will perform the ballet, Surpanakha , a sympathetic look at one of mythology’s most blighted 'heroines'. This is part of the ongoing Kala Ghoda festival.
Conversation @ DSM – Rekha Sabnis Memorial Lecture Series will take place on February 9, at Mumbai Marathi Sahitya Sangh, Charni Road (East) at 6 p.m.; entry is free
