A revival of interest in Marathi theatre is owed to new productions of classic plays. At NCPA’s Marathi Natya Utsav next month, the programme features three past masterpieces.
Two years ago, to revive flagging interest in the genre, Marathi theatre turned to its glorious past. Faced with a dearth of exciting new scripts and too many empty seats, producers and directors experimented with the classics in order to reinvent themselves. It worked. The biggest beneficiary — apart from the Marathi theatre cohort — of this experimentation was the young generation of theatre-goers: those who had only heard about these plays from their parents, and never seen them performed.
The National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) has taken note of this trend of reviving the classics. It has included three masterpieces of Marathi theatre in the second edition of its annual Pratibimb Marathi Natya Utsav to start next month. Moruchi Mavshi, Jaswandi and Lovebirds were chosen to represent three periods: the 1940s, 1970s and 1990s, respectively. All three are new productions of old works.
Moruchi Mavshi, written by Acharya P K Atre, is about three friends who live together in one house as paying guests. Two of them fall for the girls next door, and comic chaos overwhelms their lives.
Lovebirds, written and directed by Girish Joshi, tests the widely held beliefs that lovebirds live in pairs and that the death of one lovebird will be soon followed by the death of its partner.
Jaswandi is a modern tragedy, in which a housewife who is trying to come to terms with her loneliness falls for a younger man — and this leads her into greater heartache.
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Artist and writer Gieve Patel’s English play Mister Behram, translated into Marathi by Shanta Gokhale, is another classic in the festival’s lineup. Nobel literature prize winner Jose Saramago’s novel The Elephant’s Journey, as adapted by Pune theatre group Aasakta, will represent the “bravely experimental” side of Marathi theatre in Gajab Kahani.
The NCPA Pratibimb festival does not aim to draw only Marathi-speaking audiences. As happened at last year’s edition of the Natya Utsav, the organisers hope the mix of plays will attract theatre-lovers of all ages and backgrounds. Other theatre festivals at NCPA, like Vasant-Guj, Ananda-Hindi and Centrestage (the multilingual festival of premiering plays), are also organised with the objective of attracting an eclectic audience.
| Date | Play | Group/Producer | Contact |
| 5-Aug 6.30 pm | Jaswandi by Sai Paranjpye | Maharashta Rangabhoomi | Santosh Kocharekar 0-9930985456 |
| 6-Aug 6:00 PM | Moruchi Maushi by Priyadarshan Jadhav | Neelam Shirke | Neelam Shirke 0-9892224656 |
| 7-Aug 6:00 PM | Gajab Kahani by Mohit Takalkar | Aasakta | Ashish Mehta 0-9922935591 |
| 8-Aug 6.30 pm | Mister Behram by Aniruddha Khutwad | Kalakendra | Aniruddha Khutwad 0-9960922108 |
| 9-Aug 6.30 pm | Lovebirds by Girish Joshi | Dinu Pedanekar | Dinu Pedanekar 0-9820401968 |
“Marathi plays have a mixed audience,” says Deepa Gahlot, who heads theatre and film programmes at NCPA. “There is a section of non-Maharashtrians who are avid followers of Marathi plays. There is also a very active inter-collegiate and one-act play competition circuit, in which students and youngsters are involved. They come to watch this festival, like they did last year. So we are not targeting a particular age group.”
Amol Palekar, the film actor who started his career in Marathi theatre and keeps in touch with his roots, will be the face of NCPA Pratibimb 2011.
Pratibimb: Marathi Natya Utsav 2011 runs August 5-9 at the Experimental Theatre, NCPA. Tickets are Rs 100 for members, Rs 150 for the public, and go on sale at NCPA on July 26 for members and July 29 for the public. See www.ncpamumbai.com for details
