All in the family: A theatrical throwback to the joint family system

Curtain call: The Wada trilogy (Wada Chirebandi, Magna Talyakathi and Yugant) is being staged at Ram Krishna More Auditorium in Chinchwad, Mumbai. (Source: Rajesh Stephan)

At Vile Parle’s Dinanath Mangeshkar Natyagriha Hall, in Mumbai, the audience is trickling in slowly. There’s room for 900 people inside and soon that space is almost completely filled. They are all present to get a taste of a “unique experience” — of watching a series of plays staged back-to-back over a span of nine hours. The plays, directed by Chandrakant Kulkarni, are part of the “Wada trilogy”. Penned by acclaimed playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar, the trilogy comprises the classic Wada Chirebandi, followed by part two and three, Magna Talyakathi and Yugant, respectively. The 78-year-old playwright, who now resides in Nagpur, also has to his credit plays such as Holi, which was later adapted into a film by Ketan Mehta; and, Party, a satire on the urban artistic elite, which was Govind Nihalani’s sequel to Ardh Satya.

However, in times of Netflix, expecting the audience to binge-watch plays is risky, admits Kulkarni. He was, however, confident that it might do quite well because he was, partly, relying on the rich Marathi tradition of watching nataks. He was also banking on the novelty of the idea and the general popularity of the texts. “Elkunchwar wrote Wada Chirebandi 35 years ago but the play continues to be staged as a standalone in different languages even today,” says Kulkarni.

Set in a wada (mansion) in a Vidarbha village during the 1970s, Wada Chirebandi talks about the disintegration of the joint family through the story of the Deshpande family. It begins with Sudhir arriving from Mumbai, five days after his father’s death. Joined by his wife Anjali, they are to stay for the 13-day mourning period. The family includes his mother, grandmother, unmarried sister Prabha, elder brother Bhaskar and his wife and two children. The story revolves around the relationships after Sudhir distances himself from any responsibility towards the situation in his family home. The crumbling edifice of the wada becomes the symbol of the changing times. Penned in 1982, Wada Chirenbandi was first performed on stage in 1984, directed by Vijaya Mehta.

During a short break, an audience member, Alka Kulkarni mentions that she has watched Wada Chirebandi before. But it still draws her because it is reminiscent of the times she has seen. “These events happened in so many Maharashtrian families. The family members who stay in the village thought the ones who have moved to cities are financially doing well while those in the city didn’t understand the situation and problems of the village life,” says, Alka, who is in her fifties.

According to Mumbai-based playwright Ramu Ramanathan, the true brilliance of the play lies in what is happening off-stage. “With this play, Elkunchwar also touches upon the futility of certain traditions, patriarchy and the shifting dynamics of caste. The playwright was also able to foresee the implications of migration from the village to cities as well as the agrarian crisis in the region, things we are talking about today,” he says.

The second of the trilogy, Magna Talyakathi, or “The Pond”, talks about small-town aspirations, the rise of the noveau riche, and the general moral degradation of the society through Bhaskar’s son.

Kulkarni says he was present at the first reading of the play at Shriram Lagoo’s residence in 1995: “When I heard Magna Talyakathi, I loved the progression of the characters and was keen to stage it. But Elkunchwar had one condition: that he stage the two parts together, with only a small break in between.”

Kulkarni found support in Vijay Tendulkar, who was then heading the Mumbai-based theatre group Awishkar, which has been at the heart of Marathi experimental theatre. Awishkar stepped in to produce and while the rehearsals for the two plays were on, Kulkarni received word from Elkunchwar that he had penned a third part, Yugant.

(Source: Rajesh Stephan)

The first time the entire trilogy was staged, thus, was as an experimental theatre piece in 1999. It opened at Ravindra Natya Mandir in Dadar and was staged in Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Nagpur.

His decision to stage the trilogy once again, now, after all these years, also stems from its relevance. “If my generation connects with Wada Chirebandi, the current crop of youth finds their concerns reflected in Yugant,” says Kulkarni. A 45-minute play largely comprising soliloquies and monologues, Yugant is set in a dystopic future. It brings the two cousins Abhay and Parag, now in their late 30s, face-to-face as they attempt to understand their roots and re-evaluate their decisions.

The current production, however, is mounted on a larger scale and can, thus, be considered more “commercial”. Kulkarni understands that the challenges for staging the trilogy come with the added problem of holding the audience’s attention for all those hours, and has kept the number of shows limited to 12.

However, the novelty of a trilogy wasn’t a conscious design on part of the playwright. In his note in the recently-released book Dayad, which archives the making of the trilogy, Elkunchwar acknowledges the criticisms towards Magna Talyakathi and Yugant, and, adds that the two plays came not from the desire for a gimmick but from his creative recesses because the characters refused to die out.

In fact, it would be fair to say that many in the audience come not for Elkunchwar’s writing but for the actors and for Kulkarni, who is an established name in commercial Marathi theatre. The renowned Pune-based theatre director Mohit Takalkar, who has recently made a new documentary feature on Elkunchwar, says, “Elkunchwar is acclaimed, but not popular in the mainstream. This is because his plays address subjects that make the audience uncomfortable.”

Factors at play
* Mumbai has 12 to 15 auditoriums to stage Marathi commercial plays
* The annual turnover of Marathi theatre in 2015 was estimated at Rs 15 crore
* The city sees between 20 and 30 new productions every year
* A play is a success if it has over 200 shows in a year. Old plays like Vastraharan have been running for years with more than 5,000 shows