Mahatma, once again- The Times of India

The most eagerly awaited play this month is Lillete Dubey's Sammy, a wonderful production based on Mahatma Gandhi's life, that opens this weekend. Written by Partap Sharma (whose Zen Katha Dubey did last year), the play stars Joy Sengupta as Gandhi and Neha Dubey as Kasturba — both of whom have given excellent performances. Vijay Crishna plays the Mahatma, an imaginary figure with whom Gandhi has conversations every time he faces a crisis in his life.

Covering a huge time span from the time a young Gandhi was ejected from a train in apartheid-ridden South Africa to the moving moment of his death — Sharma and Dubey have condensed Gandhi's rich life in a two-hour production, using just eight actors playing multiple parts, which is quite a feat! (Interestingly, Joy Sengupta joins the band of illustrious actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Boman Irani and Atul Kulkarni who have played the character of Gandhi on stage, while Neha Dubey follows in the footsteps of Bhakti Barve Inamdar, Meenal Patel, Seema Biswas and Jayati Bhatia, playing Kasturba).

How does a theatre group get today's audiences to see a Shakespeare play? Neeraj Kabi and his group Pravah did some interesting work with Hamlet and presented a show that was experimental in the best sense of the term.

He blended the original English work with Harivanshrai Bachchan's excellent Hindi translation, used Yakshagana performers from Karnataka, live Dhrupad singing and a team of spirited young actors to produce a very watchable play. This sort of mix-and-match approach often turns out to be pretentious or boring, but they managed to hold the packed auditorium for nearly two hours (without an interval). Hidayat Sami's lighting design and Deepa Kosta Kabi's ‘fusion' costumes deserve special mention. For Mumbai audiences, however, the Yakshagana portions (the killing of Hamlet's father, the duel between Hamlet and Laertes) were a visual treat.

Sujata Mehta tends to vanish for long stretches of time and then resurfaces just as abruptly. She stars in Umesh Shukla's new Gujarati comedy, Alvida Darling, with Bakul Thakkar. Written by Jayesh Mehta, the play is about Mr and Mrs Mehta, ‘opposites', who fell in love and got married, only to end up on the verge of divorce. A Parsi counsellor then teaches them what marriage and commitment are all about.

Talking of Gujarati plays, Dilip Joshi's comedy, Bapu Tame Kamaal Kari, shows no signs of slowing down. A couple of times, the team announced the last show and got a full house, making them wonder if they should go on with it a while longer!

Sanjay Narvekar, better known as Dedh Footya in Vaastav, has done a lot of hit Marathi plays (like All The Best, Aamhi Jagto Befan, Aadhantar) and now tries his hand at a Hindi comedy Ek Fool Do Bloody Fool. He plays a guy who gets power for a day and sets out to solve the world's problems. Written and directed by Santosh Pawar, the character seems to be just up Narvekar's street.

The country's literary and theatre community mourns the passing away of K V Subbanna recently. He had set up a wonderful cultural complex Ninasam, in Heggodu village in Karnataka, an institution that was an inspiration to many. A real tribute to the visionary would be to set up Ninasams everywhere in the country.