By Vidyadhar Date*
Mumbai: Theatre ticket prices are as low as Rs 10 and Rs 15 for the current final round of the Maharashtra State Marathi Drama contest finals at Rangasharada theatre in Bandra. That is how it should be, it is one reason the Marathi theatre remains so vibrant, and people from other language groups are so much in awe of its talent. The drama competition has been organised by the State Department of Culture in various centres, all at the State expense for more than five decades.
Much of the theatre talent in Maharashtra owes a debt to the free workshops which Vijaya Mehta used to conduct with great devotion for each year for over a month, organised by the state government at Ravindra Natya Mandir in Prabhadevi.
Ravindra Natya Mandir was simple, functional, like the Siddhi Vinayak temple next to it, which is now captured by moneyed sections and is turned into a money spinner and an obstruction to traffic. Ravindra Natya Mandir is now renovated for the second time since those days and the premises were inaugurated by the chief minister last Sunday after several last-minute postponements after invites were sent out.
Some of the most memorable Marathi plays like Ghashiram and Mahanirwaan are a product of this competition. Life was simpler then. I remember a performance of Ghashiram at Birla Matushri Sabhagar decades ago when the team used to travel by a special State Transport bus from Pune.
Contrast what Ravindra Natya Mandir represents with the Nita Ambani Centre at Bombay-Kurla-Complex (BKC). I am not arguing against this centre at the moment. It is a venue for theatre events but it can hardly be called a cultural centre because of its ambience and the overpowering presence of big money. A venue for free discussion, that is what any cultural centre means and that is absolutely what it is not.
It is very ostentatious. The grand theatre is now perhaps for the first time to be a site for a Marathi play, the revival of the comedy Sooryachi Pille of Vasant Kanetkar dating back to 1978. The original was directed by Damoo Kenkre with a strong cast. One performance of the new version featuring Sunil Barve and others is scheduled for April 6, 2025, evening.
I can understand all artists should aspire to perform in this centre here, nothing against them but the point is we must never lose awareness of the context. The trouble is indirectly this makes one so subservient to big money without even realising it. It has an indirect unhealthy effect. It also breeds a culture of fear. So one hardly hears of any serious critic really analysing this space.
Also, the trouble is we are not creating enough theatre space, affordable to common people, theatre groups. For that we will have to loosen the stranglehold of the builder lobby in everything. An experimental theatre opened recently in the Yeshwant Natya Mandir in Dadar, with some free shows and a discussion of Vaze’s experimental play was held there last week. A library is being run in the Vishnudas Bhave municipal theatre in Navi Mumbai. One cannot imagine that happening in the Ambani centre.
And spaces formerly available are not being used now, like the Rang Bhavan open air theatre, which was such an enormously popular venue for so many events, including rock music shows, the state drama competition finals used to be held here, big functions for giving away state government awards used to be held. There is now a demand for its revival.
The open air Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir has been gifted by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai to a big builder, an exercise that must be treated as utterly inexcusable like the municipal body’s handing over of Vallabhbhai stadium in Worli to National Sports Club of India, now what may be called a den of forces constantly involved in corruption charges, much mud slinging.
*Senior journalist. The views are personal.
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