Neelam Shirke's Bouquet of 50 Classic Plays... : www.MumbaiTheatreGuide.com

Neelam Shirke's Bouquet of 50 Classic Plays...

February 16, 2011 12:00:00 AM IST
MTG editorial

Revival is the new buzz word in the Marathi theatre industry. What with Neelam Shirke acquiring the rights of as many as 50 old plays and restoring them for posterity. She has kick started her grand carnival with BARRISTER.

Producer Neelam Shirke is beaming with pride as the inaugural show of BARRISTER opened to a full house. "We bow before the discerning Marathi patrons. Can you believe this? Audiences came all the way from Virar to watch this play in Dadar?" she enthused. Such is the magical lure of Jayawant Dalvi's controversial play set in 1910s revolving around the life and times of a conscientious barrister who challenges the old practice of tonsuring a widow and depriving her of social status. The "much talked about" play was launched 33 years ago and Vikram Gokhale had shot to fame playing the title role. Now he has directed the play while Shailesh Datar plays the coveted role of Barrister.

And that is not all. Neelam Shirke has gone the whole mile and acquired the rights of as many as 50 "milestone" Marathi plays that she proposes to showcase over the coming months. "This revival mission was my business partner R D Samant's idea. He is based in Ratnagiri and has some fond childhood memories of watching popular plays. He wished to revisit the golden era," explains Neelam.

The return of the classics, she hopes, will benefit the Gen next Marathi talent. "The younger lot is on a fast-track these days. They do one odd play at the college level and jump onto the tele serial wagon. And they burn out fast. Look at the yesteryear actors - they are still there," she points out.

The revived classics will serve as a training ground for young theatre workers as well as patrons, she hopes. Neelam and her advisers started off with a list of 10 plays but over the past one and a half year, that number has steadily grown in to a nice round figure of 50. "In all fairness, we have included all-time classics in our repertoire," says Neelam.

As a producer, Neelam argues that reviving classics makes better business sense than producing a brand new play. "We will stage 25 shows of each of the 50 plays. We want to reach out to as many centres as possible," she adds. Come March 2011 and Neelam is all set to roll the ever-green laugh riot MORUCHI MAUSHI followed by PURUSH and MAHASAGAR. In the pipeline are SUR RAHUDE, VAHATO DURVANCHI JUDI, KONITARI AAHE TITHE, DINUCHYA SUSUBAI RADHABAI and SANDHYA CHHAYA. A great treat awaits theatre buffs.

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