King of Spades

“Dost, chaar small dena”! In any other situation this would have sounded like an order at a bar counter but here we were finally, after braving the horrible traffic of a typical Mumbai evening, at the booking window of Prithvi Theater,Juhu. Chaar Small by T-Pot productions was playing that evening. A collection of 4 short stories centered around a bar is what one could guess, from the poster displayed outside the venue. The humour was served right on toast by the cast, with an introductory aarti asking the viewers to put their phones on silent!  Pretty innovative I thought. The lighting, set, innovative posters (one to back the above aarti), a superb live band etc just created the perfect ambience for the spirits to soar further! Once the stories/acts start spanning out one after the other, you realize that the common link in all of these is not the bar but it is the city of Mumbai. The city of aspirations and thus migrations, underlying issues and yes humanity or what is famous...

Girish Karnad’s Wedding Album was playing in Prithvi Theater the other night. There was a lot of buzz surrounding it, considering the cast and the writer in question. Hence decided to give it a shot and that too on a Saturday night, when a shot usually means getting something that lifts your spirits! The play started off promising to be something different, especially with the treatment of the typical pixilated video call by Vidu (Ira Dubey) to her prospective husband Ashwin, who is settled in US and yet wants an Indian bride. The storyline centers around the incidents that happen within the Konkani family, around the impending wedding of their daughter. Vidu’s family consists of her retired father, mom, her elder sister Hema (married and settled in Australia, flown down for the wedding leaving her husband and two kids behind), her brother Rohit (the breadwinner and also a prospective bridegroom) and their maid Radhabai. So the stage looked set for some fun, drama and other things ...

Sex-Among the favourite Human Pastimes. Morality-To each, his own definition. Censorship-Something we all love to rebel against, in all walks of life. Now when one has all these three words as a single title, it is bound to catch your attention and that’s exactly what happened! Surfing through the papers on a lazy Sunday morning, i noticed this interesting title. What followed was a quick online booking of tickets and me and my friend were well on our way to this play at Prithvi. On entering the first thing that strikes you is the nicely decorated set using light bulbs that add their own rustic charm to the stage . The play starts off as a dialogue between a Tamasha artist and a Shahir both facing the onslaught of the so called cultural censorship of their trade. They are soon joined by a historian who supports the Shahir in taking the Tamasha artist and with her, the audience through the play of Sakharam Binder.Sakharam Binder was a play written by the late Vijay Tendulkar in 1...