Stage Impressions

REVIEW: 102 Not Out

OLD? NOT HIM!

Ahmedabad-based playwright-director-actor Saumya Joshi was the man behind one of the biggest Gujarati hits of recent times—Welcome Zindagi. The play set in a middle-class family and dealing with a father-son conflict, found repeat audiences, since it told a generation gap story that many must have identified with.  It broke all  the rules of commercial Gujarati theatre, and his new fans were keen to know what Saumya would do for an encore.

REVIEW: Katha

LOSING THE PLOT

Anand Mhasvekar's last play U Turn was a sensitive, witty and topical narrative about the loneliness of two elderly souls and their unsuccessful bid at seeking solace in each other on account of social pressures and their inability to break free. Wonderfully acted by Ila Bhate and Dr. Girish Oak, the play was an entertaining and moving experience.

With his new venture, Katha, the writer-director tries to tackle a different theme, but sticks to protagonists in a similar age group and, in a sense, harbouring the same sense of isolation, bitterness and fallibility, of the earlier play. This time he gets theatre veterans Vikram Gokhale and Suhas Joshi to play Shamrao and Malati Lele, a retired couple living by themselves in suburban Dombivali. A voiceover informs us that through a 35-year-old marriage, they've bickered and run each other down as a matter of daily routine.

INTERVIEW: Manoj Shah

MANOJ PLUS MANOJ

“I think I am rehearsing one raga and trying to learn throughout my life,” says Manoj Shah, who takes pride in the fact that he, a school drop-out has been doing theatre for 30 years, and many of them for educational institutions.

In his long career, he has done plays of all kinds but, has now come to be known for plays on Gujarati poets, saints and spiritual leaders. These plays—like Apurva Avsar, Jal Jal Mar Patang, Siddh Hem, Vastupal Tejpal, and his latest Amar Fal,  run to full houses at Prithvi, but, surprisingly pack in larger auditoria too, for which his explanation is that Gujarati audiences are fond of attending spiritual discourses anyway; if they are in the form of a play, so much the better.

REVIEW: Kaay Danger Wara Sutalaya

CITY OF SHATTERED DREAMS

Jayant Pawar's new play Kaay Danger Wara Sutalaya paints a depressing and very scary picture of contemporary life in Mumbai. Unfortunately for us, it may not be far from the truth. On the one hand is a multi-media presentation of an award function for the city's builders, with politicians, film stars and assorted dignitaries in attendance. On the other is the story of a simple-minded, middle-class insurance agent called Dabhade (Anil Gawas in a heartbreakingly honest performance) who believes that if he does no harm to anyone, no harm will ever come to him. Contrasted with Dabhade's character is a young man called Baban who has recently migrated to the city and starts off by collecting debris and sorting it before taking on various other odd jobs, none of which earn him enough money to sustain. A sutradhar ties these narrative threads together and acts like a wake-up call to our collective conscience.