08/04/2014
It's well past 9pm on Sunday. The metal detector at Kashinath Ghanekar Natyagruha is taking in a genteel avalanche of people. There are women who have paired skirts with kurtas, white-haired men in sherwanis, girls in high heels and boys with tattoos, all of whom strangely smell of the same perfume. Few minutes ago, some of them had branched out into three separate queues outside the gate, tut-tutted about the delay and wondered aloud if every show on Sunday night was as crowded.
On February 24, the sole 9pm show of Ashvin Gidwani Production Blame It On Yashraj filled up nearly 90 per cent of the 1,200-seater Dr Kashinath Ghanekar auditorium. The play, starring veteran actor Anant Mahadevan, tries to explore the concept of inter-religious marriage through a comedic, Bollywood-tinted lens. Not only did the audience laugh at all the right moments, but also seemed unduly kind to tired jokes, as if they were making up for lost time.
After all, for the first time in several years, an English-language play was being staged in their neighbourhood. Ever since a local club that used to bring English-language drama troupes to Gadkari Ragayatan shut down, there had been a long lull in this space.
This is perhaps why, for a while now, Mahesh Rajderkar, manager of Kashinath Ghanekar Natyagruha, had been receiving requests from the cosmopolitan crowd around the cultural centre for an English- language play. "Though many production companies had approached me, I was in search of a renowned name," says Rajderkar, adding that the audience is not bothered about the money. "Their only concern is quality," he says, explaining why the tickets were costing Rs 1,000 and Rs 800.
This may appear unprecedented, given Thane's image as a middle-class Maharashtrian conclave but "it is a misconception that the city is predominantly Maharashtrian and that Maharashtrians are predominantly middle-class," says Bharat Dabholkar, the beefy director of the play. "The city now has many non-Maharashtrians who are willing to shell out for a good evening," adds Dabholkar, saying that trivia he had gathered from his experience in advertising about how many of the first-class train passengers were Maharashtrians.
Recently, when Gidwani saw the video of the Thane show, he heard laughter "every one-and-a-half minute". "It was a gratifying audience. They stayed till midnight on a Sunday and some even came on stage to congratulate the team," says Gidwani, adding that such discernment stems perhaps from the strong, local penchant for theatre.
Though Gidwani says he would never have seen this kind of turnout in South Mumbai on a Sunday night, he did have his doubts before bringing the show to the city. "I always wanted to venture out into the suburbs, but was apprehensive about the response," says Gidwani, who was constantly egged on by local theatre enthusiasts to stage plays in Thane as it would cut down on their commute back home. So after a year of dilly-dallying, the producer decided to ride on the popularity of Bharat Dabholkar, who features as a Maharashtrian priest in the play. Gidwani says Dabholkar even inserted a few Marathi lines in his dialogue on purpose to pander to the city. It definitely paid off.
The response has set the tone for English-language theatre in the city. "I definitely see a future for English-language plays in Thane," says Gidwani, adding that slapstick won't go down well with the audience in Thane. "They would enjoy matured shows," says the producer, who is now bringing other shows such as actor Vir Das's standup show History of India Viritten and Saurabh Shukla's Two to Tango, Three to Jive to the city. "We might even organise these shows at Gadkari Rangayatan to experience a slightly different audience profile," says Dabholkar.
