SPOTLIGHT: Recap 2010

FAST AND FURIOUS

The best part of the year gone by was the heaps of new and original plays. At one time, theatre people used to grumble about the lack of new writing, and now there’s a spate.  And there will be more what with Writers’ Bloc coming up in 2011 and also the Sultan Padamsee Award for Playwriting making a comeback after many years.

The Centrestage Festival at the NCPA had eight original plays--- Siddharth Kumar’s The Interview,  Purva and Vijay Naresh’s Aaj Rang Hai, Manav Kaul’s Haath Ka Aaya.. Shunya, Nadira Babbar’s Bollywood Ka Salaam, Sandesh Kulkarni’s Punashcha Honeymoon, Abhay Mahajan’s Chakra and Sneha and Hema Desai’s Meera.  At Thespo too, all the four finalists were original plays— two of the best, Tipping Point and My Goad Pune in Marathi.

Hindi theatre welcomed into its fold new writer Trishla Patel, who wrote and directed the quirky Kumbh Katha and also set up new group T-Pot to produce this, as well as Aaj Rang Hai (among the best productions of the year), with Purva Naresh’s new group Aarambh.

Two more theatre group came into existence Rangbaaz (Imran Rasheed, Pawan Uttam) with their delightful comedy Bade Miyan Deewane and Kamal Karamchandani’s Rangshila that produced the hilarious Refund , directed by Avneesh Mishra.

As far as Hindi theatre is concerned, its two playwriting stalwarts are out in full force--- Makrand Deshpande (Joke, Poha Gone Wrong), and Manav Kaul (Red Sparrow, Mamtaz Bhai Patang Waale, Haath Ka Aaya… Shunya); while the older groups have been no less active,  Yatri’s Ravanleela has been doing well, Ank’s Prashn Panchali pleased connoisseurs of Hindi, while Ekjute has been experimenting with subjects and styles, from old Bollywood to children’s plays.

Sunil Shanbag wowed audiences with his Hindi-English Tagore tribute Walking to the Sun and Bijon Mondal kept up his tryst with classics with an Urdu version of Oedipus Rex.

Feroz Khan returned to theatre with a hugely successful Dinner With Friends, that brought Tisca Chopra and Perizaad Zorabian on stage with Joy Sengupta and Vinay Jain; he is planning a new production for the new year in which he plans to act.  Ashvin Gidwani hit paydirt again with the comedy Get Rid of  My Wife and Vir Das’s History of India; he will go into the new year with a bang and a grand production of Khalid Mohamed’s musical Kennedy Bridge with TV star Eijaz Khan in the lead.

The city’s most prolific group Akvarious, helmed by the indefatigable Akarsh Khurana, did more plays that can be counted on the fingers, ending with Rebecca that he produced and The Interview (by Siddharth Kumar) that he directed. Saba Azad’s Love Puke came, conquered and vanished. Lillete Dubey celebrated 20 years of her group Prime Time with  festival of her best work.

The short monologue and duologue format has caught on—Rage’s One On One, Ibid’s Classic Milds 1 & 2 as well as the Gujarati Saat Tari Ekvees 2 continued the success of the earlier series of monologues.

Manoj Shah’s Amar Fal continued his explorations into Gujarati literature, while at least three Gujarati plays broke the mould—Saumya Joshi’s Welcome Zindagi, a surprise hit, Mihir Bhuta’s Sardar and Dharmendra Gohil Meera.

As far as Marathi theatre goes, the best plays are coming in from Pune, whether Aasakta’s Necropolis or Tichee Satra Prakarne or Samanvay’s Katkon Trikon or Punashcha Honeymoon, though Avishkar’s Bayaa Daar Ughad by Sushama Deshpande was a zinger.

The theatre event of the year was Complicite’s A Disappearing Number that Sanjna Kapoor brought down from the UK and by the time it opened, she had whipped up anticipation with a month devoted to Mathematics.

This barely skims the surface of what 2010 offered and 2011 has much more—new festivals, new fringe spaces opening up and more international productions.   Keep watching!