How two Marathi plays – ‘Shivaji Underground’ and ‘Sangeet Devabhabhli’ -- are reshaping the stage

MUMBAI: In a Marathi theatre landscape often defined by the box office, two plays -- ‘Shivaji Underground in Bhimnagar Mohalla’ and ‘Sangeet Devbhabhli’ -- have defied the status quo, carving out a decade-long legacy of radical and soulful storytelling as they march confidently towards their landmark 1000th show.First the commonalities – the two plays have been achieving something rare for the past decade or so: they have walked out of the drawing room and into the open air. They do not merely entertain; they demand an awakening. While ‘Shivaji Underground in Bhimnagar Mohalla’, is a polemical, radical interrogation of history, ‘Sangeet Devbhabhli’ is a delicate, musical inquiry into the lives of two women left behind by the march of saintly men. Together, they represent two young voices of the Marathi stage: Rajkumar Tangde and Prajakta Deshmukh.Revisiting ShivajiThe genesis of ‘Shivaji Underground in Bhimnagar Mohalla’ is a story of grit that belongs more to the soil than the stage. Rajkumar Tangde, its playwright, hails from Jamb Samartha, a village famously associated with the seventeenth-century saint Ramdas Samartha. In a land where devotion is often a commodity, Tangde grew up watching the Warkari tradition calcify into a ritualistic rut. For Tangde, writing was never a genteel pastime; it was, as he puts it, a “reliable weapon.”A subversive play, it opens the trappings of a traditional gondhal only to be interrupted by a character who declares, in essence, that the audience is weary of the old myths. The plot is wafer-thing: Yama, the god of death (brief cameo by Lokshahir Sambhaji Bhagat), arrives on earth to fetch Shivaji (again, a brief cameo by Dnyanesh Maharao), but the warrior king has misplaced his ideas. What follows is a frantic search for a “head” with its set of principles and values that can wear the king’s turban.As the play unfolds, the turban becomes a symbol of the gap between the Shivaji of history, a ruler concerned with women, caste, and agriculture and the Shivaji of modern politics, co-opted by those who once opposed his coronation. The play says there are many myths about Shivaji which have been popularised to garner support for their ideology. As Rajkumar Tangde says, “While it is true that Shivaji Maharaj was a Hindu and he fought against Mughal opponents, that does not mean he did not fight with Hindu kings.” Those wars were waged in order to expand the states and defend their territory from enemy attacks, be it from a Rajput, Maratha, or Mughal. Tangde points out, “Religion was never the basis of any war. There were many Muslim generals who fought under Shivaji. In fact, his bodyguard was a Muslim.” ‘Shivaji Underground’ demolishes this myth of Shivaji as a Hindu king fighting only to defend Hindus from Islam. It presents an egalitarian king with a focus on the betterment of his subjects.To watch it is to watch a play that was forged in the heat of commitment. During its creation a decade ago, the cast underwent thirty-day resident workshops where they gave up everything: one actor sold his bullocks, another shut his brick business, and the crew lived in relative seclusion, stripping away the distractions of modern life to focus on the text. This was not a production that asked for applause; it was a production that required self-sacrifice.Woman behind Sant TukaramIf ‘Shivaji Underground’ is a cantankerous, political confrontation with history, ‘Sangeet Devbhabhli’, directed by Prajakta Deshmukh, is its quiet, soulful interior. While the former looks at a just ruler, the latter looks at the woman behind the saint. The play centres on the encounter between Avali, the wife of the poet-saint Tukaram, and Rakhubai, the consort of Lord Vitthal. Both are women marginalised by their husbands’ divine pursuits; and both are left in a state of deprivation and desperation.‘Sangeet Devbhabhli’ celebrates the life and abhangs of Sant Tukaram with live rendition by the two singer-actors. Curiously enough, there is one Tukaram for everyone in the audience: the poet, the bhakt, the reformer, the vidroh. The Nashik-based playwright Prajakta Deshmukh belongs to a family of Warkaris and has a personal bond to Pandharpur. The play’s production has been formally constructed like a series of impressionistic paintings. Every image alludes to the amalgamation of elements into the mise-en-scène of the play: Prithvi, Jal, Vayu, Agni and Akash. Obviously, the genius of the playwright is to place the two male celebrities (Tukaram and Vithoba) offstage. That is what makes the play come alive in the here and now.The stage becomes a space for women’s kinship. Pradeep Mulye’s set design transports the audience from the desolate, empty kitchen of Avali to the hills of Bhandara. The play is a bearing of the feminine experience, a musical exploration of the silence left in the wake of the “great men.” It asks a poignant question: what is the cost of such devotion? When Avali and Rakhubai share their household tragedies, they are not singing of holiness, but of the mundane, painful reality of being a woman with domestic obligations. They seek answers in the rain and the fragrance of flowers, a solace that has been denied to them by the high-and-mighty temple walls.There is a thread that connects the two plays, pulling at the fabric of Indian society. It is an echo of Dr Ambedkar’s own suspicion of the status quo, the idea that singing songs of God does not lower the rent or pay the debts of the peasant. Both plays seem to operate on the premise that the “real people,” the peasants who still make up the majority of the country, are being ignored in favour of a sanitised, populist history.Tangde, in his own life, once confronted a kirtankar who criticised his play without watching it, reminding him of a verse by Ramdas: “Get your facts straight before making a comment.” This, perhaps, is the ethos of the new Marathi theatre thanks to the pen of playwrights like Tangde and Deshmukh, as well as Datta Patil. They are not interested in the “fashion and fads” of the day.Whether it is the “vidrohi” spirit of ‘Shivaji Underground’, which forces the audience to confront the co-option of their icons, or the melancholic beauty of ‘Sangeet Devbhabhli’, which forces the audience to confront the forgotten women of history, both plays share a singular objective: to strip away the veneer of sanctity. They remind us that theatre is for life, not the other way around.(Ramu Ramanathan is a Mumbai-based playwright and poet.)

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How two Marathi plays – ‘Shivaji Underground’ and ‘Sangeet Devabhabhli’ -- are reshaping the stage

While ‘Shivaji Underground in Bhimnagar Mohalla’ radically reimagines history, ‘Sangeet Devbhabhli’ explores the forgotten lives of women left behind

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How two Marathi plays – ‘Shivaji Underground’ and ‘Sangeet Devabhabhli’ -- are reshaping the stage

While ‘Shivaji Underground in Bhimnagar Mohalla’ radically reimagines history, ‘Sangeet Devbhabhli’ explores the forgotten lives of women left behind