Hindi theatre too has got back to work after the lockdown. Of the established groups, we’ve already covered Padatik’s latest, while Rangakarmee has picked up the pieces following Usha Ganguli’s demise by inviting Delhi-based Souti Chakraborty to guest-direct Abhi Rāt Bāki Hai. Jayant Pawar, who died prematurely last year, wrote the original Marathi play, Adhāntar (translated into Hindi by Kailash Sengar), in 1997, examining the dire straits of a Bahujan family during the textile mill lockouts in 1980s Bombay. Many writers in Maharashtra have dealt with the mill-closure crisis and its devastating human consequences as well as the gentrification through lucrative land deals.
Pawar saw it through the eyes of characters representing a cross-section of dashed economic ambitions: the mother somehow putting food on the table, one brother with unsuccessful literary aspirations, another a political goonda, the third trying to make some fast money in a scam, a sister on the verge of illicit activities, and her husband a union leader striking for the mill workers (in the brief but standout, power-packed appearance by Anirudh Sarkar). Rangakarmee’s young cast seem resuscitated under Chakraborty’s direction. His layout of two rooms and the kitchen recalls the iconic set of Elkunchwar’s Wādā Chirebandi, but deliberately spartan.
Mudra Arts has been around for some time; their new production, Ādhyā, by dramatist-director Dinesh Vadera, shows a mother trapped in domestic violence. She finds refuge in a theatre group where she enacts the legendary Gargi, but her husband tells her not to come home if she continues performing. In the shorter version that I saw, with a simple and straightforward narrative, Pragya Gupta bestowed a very personalized touch to the lead role, with Sharabh Chatterjee opposite her as the supportive director.
The young Black Curtain Theatre, started by Aman Jaiswal in 2017, impresses with his first original script, Locked and Key. Already qualified in comedy with Moliere, Sircar and a slapstick Sakharam Binder under his belt, Jaiswal pens a Godot-like scenario where four strangers get tossed together in a corridor because two of them have picked up the wrong keys to their neighbouring flats. Waiting, they kill time on their smartphones, until one gets on the other’s nerves, and human communication begins. Jaiswal’s direction exaggerates the absurdism, particularly Vipul Agarwal as the outraged fat cat and Karma Ghasi as the unflappable cool cat, who (for example) converse at length and knowledgeably on how beer comes from grapes! Jaiswal makes his point that, however ridiculous, talking face to face beats FaceTiming.
8 August 2022