Epic Gadbad

Sparring With The Bard

Epic Gadbad is Makrand Deshpande’s 50^th play, an irreverent farce that grew out of his 2016 play, Shakespearecha Mhatara, in which had turned King Learon its head. Some parts of the set and props of the earlier play also find themselves in the new one.

Though many of his plays have been absurd or surreal, Deshpande wanted to experiment with an all-out farce, and what invites ridicule more than an Indian wedding. However, it is not like Deshpande to be predictable, so the idea of the grand wedding goes off the rails quite fast.

A young woman, Aarti (Akanksha Gade) wants a historical wedding, and so her mother (Madhuri Gawali), uncle Mamaji (Sanjay Dadich) and a sharp-tongued odd job man Babya (Bharat More) wait the arrival of descendant of the Peshwa (Ajay Kamble) to arrive on his horse Bijlee. But Shakespeare (Ninad Limaye) arrives instead to have a duel of words with the playwright Deshpande, at Prithvi Theatre (the play’s assistant director Tushar Ghadigaonkar, makes a brief appearance in a curly wig, playing a younger Makrand Deshpande, getting the voice and gestures down pat). 

Nothing is what it seems, like so many of Deshpande’s plays, there is no linear narrative or even a logical progression of events. It is actually happening, or it a play within a play? Why does Mamaji, who insists he has the main part, make a farewell speech and reappear as another character? But the actors seem in on the jokes, and the play has a delightful improvised quality to it, which can only be arrived at if the scenes and lines are actually ad-libbed, or the actors have rehearsed so rigorously that they appear effortless.

However, the problem with a play like Epic Gadbad—enjoyable though it is—that it has too much of the kind of humour only those who are familiar with the playwright-director’s work, and the Prithvi Theatre ethos would get. Take it out of this natural habitat to an audience not made up of those in the know, and they would be completely bewildered.

Dr Anandibai : Like, Comment, Share

Pioneering Woman Doctor

A girl called Yamuna was born in 1865—unwanted and mistreated by her own mother who was hoping for a son after two daughters. But the girl was brave and resilient. As was the practice in those days, she was married at age eleven to a man twenty year her senior. Again as was the custom then (which is still quite prevalent) her name is changed to Anandi.  Her husband Gopal Joshi fancies himself as a social reformer and ‘allows’ her an education. 

 The true-grit story of Yamuna/Anandi forms the basis of Manoj Shah’s play Dr Anandibai Joshi: Like, Comment, Share, written by Geeta Manek and performed by Manasi Prabhakar Joshi.  Shah is partial to minimalistic solo-actor productions, so that the story and its message can be conveyed without dilution.

Perhaps to appeal to a younger audience, the playwright has woven in today’s social media lingo, but the story remains powerful as it is. Anandi gives birth to a son when she is only twelve, and loses him. Even though it seems like an impossible dream, she hopes to become a doctor, so that she can help other women like herself. This was a time when a girl going to school was spat at and had stones flung at her.

When they move to Calcutta, she manages to get the support of some of the British people there, and an open invitation from an Amerian woman called Theodicia Carpenter, who offers her all help and a home if she decides to go to New York to study medicine.  Against all opposition from conservatives, she makes the arduous two-month journey by ship, and Theodicia makes good on her promise to help the young woman.

Anandi gets into medical school, when there were very few white women encouraged to go for higher education. Battling the cold, near starvation and nasty letters from her suspicious husband, she gets through medical school, and returns to India in triumph as Dr Anandibai Joshi, India’s first female doctor.  But she contracted tuberculous and died a few months later, when she was barely twenty-two.

But, her struggle and success made it possible for women like Rakhmabai and Kadambini Ganguly to become doctors and then open the floodgates for others to follow.

It is a fascinating story, well documented in books and television series, but it still needs to be told again and again, because it is an inspiration for women or for anybody who wants to fight the word ‘impossible.’  Geeta Manek has infused some humour into the play and director Manoj Shah has got Manasi Prabhakar Joshi to act with admirable verve for two hours on a nearly empty stage with just a backdrop of green nine-yard saris that Dr Anandibai wore.  

Detective Nau-Do-Gyarah

Case Of The Missing MacGuffin

Atul Kumar’s Detective Nau-Do-Gyarah is a crazy, adventurous and completely delightful tribute to noir cinema and graphic novels, seamlessly blending comedy, murder, espionage and a “39 Ka Aankda” MacGuffin (Hitchcock fan would know what that is) that indicates “desh ko khatra”. Like in so many Hitchcock films an innocent bystander gets caught up in a complicated spy plot and is forced to go on the run.

 Those who are familiar with noir-inspired Bollywood films of the Fifties would smile at the name given to the leading man – Shekhar Kumar. (In dozens of films, Ashok Kumar and Dev Anand were called Mr Shekhar). Sukant Goel plays the hapless doctor, who goes to watch a mentalist’s show at the Royal Opera House and gets a mysterious Russian woman (Anna Ador) tagging along with him to his Khandala home. When she gets killed, Shekhar has to escape cops and gangsters in pursuit, to find out who did it, so that he can prove his own innocence and save the country.

At some point he finds himself handcuffed to the haughty Miss Maya (Abir Abrar), who first mistakes him for a killer and then falls in love with him.  On his quest to solve the puzzle of seemingly nonsensical (“icchadhari bandargah”)  instructions given by the dead spy, Shekhar finds himself in many tight spots and eventually in the lair of the KN Singh-inspired villain Rai Bahadur Sinha (Atul Kumar).

 There are femmes fatale, damsels in distress and a Howrah Bridge-inspired night club number (remember the slinky Madhubala song Aaiye Meherban?).  The characters wear trench coats and Fedora hats much favoured by characters of noir thrillers--even those set in Mumbai, where such attire is never worn.

The actors speak with the stylized, slightly nasal tones that were used by actors in that period, and the plot devices are as corny as they used to be then—characters just changing hats to turn unrecognizable, or a religious book stopping a bullet.  The ‘hero and heroine’ don’t get to do the mandatory dance in a wedding party, but the live jazz band placed above all the action going on the multi-layered set, keeps the proceedings moving on briskly. The choreography, lighting, sets, costumes and spoofy script (Pallav Singh, Niketan Sharma) are excellent, and controlling all the Noises Off kind of over-the-cop chaos is director Atul Kumar having a blast, and quite disguising the grueling rehearsals and precise coordination that must have gone into pulling off a production of this splendid scale. Thanks also due to the Aditya Birla Group’s Aadyam initiative for supporting this play.