MUMBAI, JULY 25: After an uncharacteristic lull for over two months, the Marathi theatre scene has burst into frenetic activity with several new plays announced during last week. The reason behind this boom has been a grant of Rs four lakh announced by Chief Minister Narayan Rane early this month.The grant will be awarded to the projects of those producers who have been staging `quality' plays consistently during the last five years. As many as eight plays have been announced during a period of 10 days following Rane's announcement in the cabinet.The grant will be disbursed in four installments of Rs one lakh each: on the day of the play's mahurat, after the first show, on the 25th show and finally after the completion of the 50th show.The scheme comes as a much required boost to the otherwise prolific Marathi theatre since not a single commercial play was staged during May, June and early July this year. Theatre critics feel that the reason behind the sombre mood lies in the simple logistics ofproducing plays in `present times'.``The fraternity may well cite any reason for not staging any play for about two months. Money indeed was the problem and now that the grant has been announced everybody wants to make the most of it,'' said a drama critic, on conditions of anonymity.Producers have been complaining of paucity of funds. In April this year, theatre bigwigs including producers Vinay Apte, Mohan Wagh and the Maharashtra Stage Performances Scrunity Board's president, Prabhakar Panshikar, had met the Cultural Affairs Minister, Pramod Navalkar, to demand some facilities and seek concessions to the fund-starved industry. The government seems to have answered their prayers.Pleased at the government's generosity, some producers have risked staging more than one play in a week. Vilas Jadhav's theatre group Nimitta has announced Sou Tara Sakharam and a remake of an old classic, Lagnachi Bedi while Marathi Natya Parishad's president, Machhindra Kambli, has announced Chyayla Gharachya and Aaata HoonJaoo Dya. The other plays which were announced this month are Sudhir Bhat's Eka Lagnachi Goshta and a project by Mohan Tonvalkar's Kala Vaibhav.However, eyebrows were raised over the question of `quality' that the state government has declared as the yardstick for awarding the grant. A theatre critic on condition of anonymity asked, ``How will the government ensure that the projects do not get stalled, for some reasons, after the first show ie after the producer pockets the Rs two lakh.''``A realistic budget of a normal Marathi play is between Rs 60,000 to Rs 80,000. With Rs two lakh in the bag after the first show, a producer may well not mind so much if his play fails to reach its 25th show,'' the critic further said.Navalkar told Express Newsline that the state government does not have to sit in judgement over quality. ``We have passed on that work to the scrutiny board,'' he said. Before staging their plays theatre producers are required to get their scripts cleared by the Maharashtra Script andStage Performances Scrutiny Board.The grant may have sparked a debate on the government holding out the carrot of grant while keeping a tab on the type of play they stage, producers are seemingly busy making hay while the sun shines.
