‘After years of therapy, I found my voice and balance’

‘Punashcha Honeymoon’ (Honeymoon once again), winner of the Maharashtra Foundation’s R S Datar playwriting award for 2022, had its 46th show earlier this month at Studio, the intimate theatre space in the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, BKC.

‘Punashcha Honeymoon’ (Honeymoon once again), winner of the Maharashtra Foundation’s R S Datar playwriting award for 2022, had its 46th show earlier this month at Studio, the intimate theatre space in the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, BKC. Written and directed by Sandesh Kulkarni, the play is an intense two-hour examination of a relationship teetering on the brink of a precipice. Sukanya (Amruta Subhash) and Suhas (Sandesh Kulkarni) plan a second honeymoon in Matheran to give themselves time and space to pull their marriage back to safe ground. Frustrations with career and creativity in a technology-driven age, memories of innocence and pain, mental issues, unfulfilled expectations, failed communication, all come tumbling out as the play moves fluidly between past and present, hotel and home, reality and delusion, laughter and tears. If, despite its non-linear structure, it never once loses its grip on the audience, it is because of pitch perfect performances and witty, unflinchingly truthful writing. Excerps from an interview:

Frustrations with career and creativity in a technology-driven age, memories of innocence and pain, mental issues, unfulfilled expectations, failed communication, all come tumbling out as the play moves fluidly between past and present, hotel and home, reality and delusion, laughter and tears. If, despite its non-linear structure, it never once loses its grip on the audience, it is because of pitch perfect performances and witty, unflinchingly truthful writing. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT PHOTO)

In its first version which I remember seeing some 12 years ago, Punashcha Honeymoon was a simpler, more conventionally structured play. This is not the same play. What happened between then and now to change it so radically?

We wrapped up the earlier version after five shows. But I knew I wasn’t done with the play. I continued to mull over it. I made a second draft but was still not satisfied. Around that time, I went into two successive bouts of clinical depression. When I came out of them, I found I had acquired greater clarity. I went back to the play, rewrote some scenes, cut out others, turned things around, snipped and edited till it was time to go into rehearsal. Further changes followed. Finally, the play acquired its present shape.

I saw the play in a packed, intimate space where the audience was totally involved. But you as producer, are determined to make a go of it as a commercial venture. Against all practical calculations, you have been staging it in large auditoria where people expect to see plays with a clear beginning, middle and end. How does that work out?

You are right. People aren’t exactly lining up to see it on the commercial stage. But the play seems to have an impact all the same. The audiences are thin. Typically, only the first seven or eight rows get filled. But interestingly, because the play gets through to them, they seem to feel a moral responsibility towards it. They not only respond whole-heartedly, but also come backstage to give us their reactions. Our smallest audience was in an enormous auditorium in Borivali. Our advertisement for the show had inadvertently mentioned the wrong venue. As a result, we had an audience of fifteen. I told the cast we would have to rely on our internal conviction, not look for external acknowledgement. Our roots in experimental theatre where audiences are always small, helped. However, as it turned out, this audience of fifteen literally carried the show on their shoulders.

Did your international residency at the Royal Court Theatre in London help you gain the kind of self-belief required to stand by your play come what may?

That experience gave me not only confidence but exposure. The highlight of the residency was a talk by Harold Pinter. He had just come out of cancer therapy. He said his suffering had made him kinder to the suffering of others. My co-participants came from all over the world. They shared valuable insights about their craft. I saw many plays, both on the West End and the Fringe and came away with the conviction that our theatre could equal any other in the world in terms of ideas and approach. I was also convinced that our audiences could be nudged into pushing themselves beyond conventional expectations. That explains the announcement we make before the show, alerting them to the different treatment of time and space they are about to witness.

You have had a mental health setback. You and your wife Amruta are constantly busy shooting for television and OTT platforms. I assume you aren’t making money on this play. As producer you should worry about returns on investment. But you don’t seem to. Please explain.

During my bouts of depression, I was totally disconnected from myself and the world, like Camus’ protagonist in ‘The Outsider’. But, after years of therapy, I have finally found my voice and something like a balance. Financially, our shows ran at a loss for the longest time; but now, we occasionally break even. It helps that Amruta, our loyal co-actor Amit Phalke and I don’t take our professional fees. Shooting for films and serials is time-consuming, yes; but it pays for shows. I want to run the play for another year.