For the third innings of  Marathi theatre festival  Pratibimb, Deepa Gahlot,  programming head of theatre and  film at the National Centre for the  Performing Arts, confessed the  near impossibility of premiering  a play. “The directors say they  cannot get the actors to commit  well in advance,” Gahlot said, who  decided instead “to showcase the  best of [non-commercial] Marathi  drama in the previous year”. 

A theme has inevitably emerged  from each year’s selection:  young playwrights in 2010, the  best revivals last year, and plays  about social issues this year.  “The pride of place here goes  to Satyashodhak,” Gahlot said,  explaining that director Atul  Pethe’s play which has a cast of  Pune’s municipal workers staging  social reformer Jyotiba Phule’s  autobiography “is the kind of  play the regular NCPA member  probably wouldn’t have access to”. 

This year’s edition felicitates  Satish Alekar, whose play  Pralay was the inaugural show  at the Experimental Theatre,  NCPA in 1986. The six plays  include Sushama Deshpande’s  Chitragoshhti which explored  Sudhir Patwardhan’s paintings  and debuted last fortnight. 

Director Manaswini Lata  Ravindra, a jubilant second-timer  at Pratibimb, said she had been  moved by the “very frank and open  responses” at the post-show  discussion of her play in 2010.  “You get an audience that knows  theatre, and not only Marathi  people but a mixed audience,”  she said. Ravindra said it was  difficult to get an audience for  Marathi plays at the NCPA without  the festival buzz, a condition  which Gahlot is hoping to change  by leveraging sponsorship for  showcasing groups from outside  Mumbai. Time Out picks some of  the plays to watch out for. 

APOORNAT APOORNAM
Writer-director Pramod Kale  first wrote about the trio locked  in an endless game in Apoornat  Apoornam nearly a decade ago  in “Lunchtime Story”, the script  which forms the first half of the  play. “They are weird people,”  said Kale. “I wanted something  more to happen between the  characters and suddenly it came  after a gap of eight or 10 years,”  he said. “It is out of my system  now.” The characters assume  different identities in “Bimb  Pratibimb” in the second half.  “It’s a bit abstract,” said Kale,  who after a few unsuccessful  auditions, stepped in to play the  young, complex character who  wants to go beyond the game. 

Watch for: “We are doing all this  for the spectators. At our last  performance in Pune, one person  came to see me and said, ‘I have  got something to think about for  the next few days. Thank you for  disturbing me.’” 

LAKH LAKH CHANDERI
Bitter about her obscure movie  roles as a supporting actress, a  mother tries to discourage her  son from joining the film industry.  The son severs their relationship,  only to find fame later as a reality  show contestant. Writer-director  Manaswini Lata Ravindra was  inspired while reading books  on Hindi cinema. She wanted to  “write about the kind of person  who [plays] the friend of the  heroine, who rides a cycle with her  and sings songs with her but never  has [the camera’s] focus though  she has the potential”. Lakh Lakh  Chanderi moves from the 1960s  to the ’80s and the present,  spotlighting the increasing ease  of acquiring celebrity status.  A couple of video clips will be  projected on the backdrop,  such as a 1960s-style film song  composed by Kaushal Inamdar,  and a reality show contestant’s  background montage. 

Watch for: “The experience of  how the media and people have  changed from the ’60s to today’s  era, to see the world behind that  glamour.” 

SATYASHODHAK 
Director Atul Pethe’s staging of  GP Deshpande’s 1992 script  highlights episodes from Jyotiba  Phule’s life through the reformer’s  own form of satyashodhaki jalsa.  Jalsas staged in the 1940s aimed  “to impart awareness through  entertainment, while singing  songs, making small talk, making  people laugh but also spreading  the message of going beyond  the caste system, acting out  of humanity,” said Pethe. “The  songs are meant to light the fire of  revolution in the audience.” Pethe  based the performance on written  accounts. “There are 14 songs in  the play and they’re all different  kinds: folk songs, kirtan, lavani  and powada,” he said. 

Seventy per cent of the cast  comprises sanitation workers of  Pune Mahanagar Palika Kamgaar  Union, who had requested Pethe to  help them stage Phule’s life while  he was shooting a documentary  on them. Others are professional  actors. The show which opened  this January has had “immense  word of mouth publicity”, said  Pethe. “We’ve performed in many  villages, and the best part is that  the shows have been organised by  the audience.” 

Watch for: “The issues are  still relevant today: women’s  education, caste system. The  most important reason to see  it is the interpretation of Jyotiba  Phule’s views in today’s times. It  is politically important that people  from all castes and religions come  together to fight for our society.” 

SHIVAJI UNDERGROUND IN BHIMNAGAR MOHALLA
In Rajkumar Tangde’s script,  Yama searches for an absconding  Shivaji on earth by trying to  locate the head that will fit his  turban. Director Nandu Madhav  initially stepped in to work on the technical aspects of stagecraft  with Tangde, who has acted and  directed plays for 15 years with  his fellow farmer-actors in Jalna.  “I’ve been working with him for  the last eight to 10 years, and I’ve  made a film about him, but we’ve  never worked this way together,”  said Madhav. The duo spent a year  and a half on the script to convey  the material they’d collated from  nearly 20 books on Shivaji “in a  sharp and concise manner,” said  Madhav. “We were trying to make  sure that we tackle every aspect of  the subject, not skirt issues.” The  play draws on message-oriented  folk forms like jalsa, but Madhav  has tried to not make it preachy.  “We used to rehearse in the fields,  we would live together, and the  actors too got a sense of the role  because we gave them the same  books to read,” said Madhav.  “It helped them understand why  we’re making the statements  we are, where the words actually  come from.” 

Watch for: “So far the history  of Shivaji’s life has barely been  explored. His battles with Afzal  Khan and Shahistekhan are the  only ones that get highlighted.  There’s so much more.” 

SHOKAPARVA
After the Mahabharata war,  Draupadi approaches Gandhari  with a proposal in Shokaparva, a  one-act play that writer-director  Pramod Kale said has been  “cooking in my subconscious”  for 12 years. “Mahabharata has  been part of my life right from  childhood,” said Kale. “I couldn’t  imagine what could happen  between Draupadi and Gandhari  when they meet face to face  after the war when both of them  have lost everything. Though  Draupadi is on the winning side,  nobody wins in any war.” The script  interweaves Kale’s thoughts on  subjects like niyoga, or the system  of impregnating childless women,  and the role of women in a maledominated  world, with insights  from books like Irawati Karve’s  Yuganta and Durga Bhagwat’s  Vyas Parva. “The women were  victims but not weak as we think  them to be,” said Kale.  

Watch for: “We know the  Mahabharata; Shokaparva  has a new point of view to be  discussed.  

Sat Aug 4: Lakh Lakh Chanderi
Sun Aug 5: Shokaparva, Apoornat Apoornam
Mon Aug 6: Shivaji Underground in Bhimnagar Mohalla
Tue Aug 7: Satyashodak