Sports in India have become the subject of several plays in recent times, creating a subset of original drama for study. Worthy precedents in Bengali include Theatre Workshop’s Bāish Gajer Jiban on cricket and Paramik’s Winner on boxing. This year brings a Bengali play on wrestling, an English one on women’s cricket and a bilingual one from Mumbai on football. All expose the seamy underbelly that feeds on the monetization of Indian sports, but all conclude in feel-good victories, no writer willing to risk stretching their cynicism into a losing cause that represents reality more accurately.
People’s Little Theatre dedicates Pānjare Dānrer Shabda to co-founder Sova Sen, who would have certainly applauded its injection of young blood into the group. Hara Bhattacharya’s script has a double plot, of an upright Sports Authority officer who left his job because of the corruption, and a girl from the local bustee who bests boys in casual wrestling on the riverbank. Spotting her potential, he takes her under his wing and trains her into a powerhouse. But all kinds of trouble beset them, even the MeToo accusations against the Wrestling Foundation of India.
The man’s mysterious past haunts him in recurrent nightmares, too many scenes of which accompanied by an identical soundtrack allow us to predict a revelation, but it comes as an anti-climax. Topping it, Bhattacharya indulges in melodrama when the coach suddenly can’t stand up near the end, and then of course he does. Debadut Ghosh acts the part convincingly, but Koyel Sinha Ray as his protégée (photo) steals the show and holds a promising future. Kamalesh Chakraborty’s biggest directorial achievement lies in choreographing the highly realistic wrestling bouts and large youth brigade on stage.
In The Red Curtain’s continuing series on empowering women, Game Changer by Elina Dasgupta Dutta featured a talented cricketer whose father opposes her commitment to the game and wants to get her married off instead. A recipe for humour-cum-seriousness, it resonated visibly with many in the auditorium who nodded their heads sympathetically. The plug for therapeutic counselling did not seem out of place, while the prospective groom’s support for her pursuit of cricket added a pleasant touch.
Naina Punwani in the eponymous role and Piyush Daga as her brother gave most natural performances, though Sumit Lai Roy needed to direct her better in batting technique. Surjya Kar (the autocratic patriarch) and Baisali Chatterjee Dutt (the long-suffering health-compromised mother) spar so easily they should beware becoming typecast as dysfunctional husband and wife! Although the international match telecasts were very believable, down to the live score line, the still projections of the garden recalled similar designs by Aaron Targain in the past.
In their silver jubilee year, Akvarious brought Tiki-Taka to The Urban Theatre Project, depicting sordid shenanigans off the field as India’s football team plays the Asia Cup final. Co-writers Adhir Bhat and Bobby Nagra improve considerably on their previous efforts that I have seen (Internal Affairs, or Bhat’s Gā Re Mā and Dhumrapān), delineating the inner motives and interpersonal dynamics in the kit room involving the stressed-out Kashmiri coach (Faisal Rashid), the Punjabi skipper about to retire (Chaitnya Sharma) and his eager-beaver younger-bro striker (Abhinav Sharma, both in photo), the grumpy Goan kitman-former-footballer mouthing profanities (Joy Fernandes) and the squad physio (Harshita Gaur), the only one not acting on selfish interests. However, besides the soft-option pyrrhic win, I don’t think a captain would ever confide to a physio (unless she was his bestie) that he had faked an injury to avoid throwing the match.
Adhaar Khurana directed the sharp, overlapping English/Hindi dialogue with real-life flavour and precision and each cast member acted in character, except for the only superfluous part, that of the anchor-commentator, who habitually swallowed the last words and syllables of his sentences, rendering many of them, already delivered at breakneck speed, inarticulate.
5 August 2025