Tendulkar’s play sets off for Broadway

Tendulkar, who is currently scrutinising the adaptation done by Lalit Marathe, will be present for some of the play’s rehearsals before it travels to Broadway. “There is a large difference between the script and staging of a script, which is why I have decided to be present for some of the rehearsals,” he said.

The Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) has invited Deshpande to perform the play on the Tribecca stage on July 28. “We are reaching New York on July 26 to start rehearsing in advance. We will also perform in other cities like St Francisco and Houston. A special charity show has also been organised,” Deshpande added. The arts council and a few other sponsors are financing the tour.

There is a special reason for Deshpande’s choice of Ashi Pakhare Yeti for the US tour. She had staged Begum Sumroo in 1998, a period play of epic proportions. And so she was searching for a “modern and contemporary script dealing with simple human emotions which will be totally different from the earlier production”.

“I did not want anything laced with historic costumes and huge sets, but just real, ordinary human beings,” she said, bemoaning that “due to dearth of good writing, none of the modern Indian playwrights offered me a suitable scenario.”

Even as Deshpande’s search was on, IAAC forwarded the Broadway proposal. “Around the same time, actor-friend Naseeruddin Shah suggested Ashi Pakhare... I read the Marathi play and fell in love with it. I could easily identify myself with the protagonist, a young girl who is unable to find a husband, and a Maharashtrian family desperately trying to search for a groom.” Incidentally, Shah has acted in a Hindi film based on Ashi Pakhare.. which never saw the light of day. The film was made by renowned director Jabbar Patel, who had himself acted in the original Marathi play in the 70s.

As luck would have it, soon after Deshpande zeroed in on Ashi Pakhare.., she was working with actor Akash Khurana in a Hindi feature film Prashnachinha. Khurana had directed and acted in the play’s Hindi version, Mat Yaad Dila, ten years ago. “I could not have asked for a better director than Khurana. The cast of Prashnachinha largely provided the cast of the play, like Dilip Prabhavalkar. Luckily, I was able to rope in a superb cast, with artistes on the same wavelength. Ours is probably the first Indo-English production to be staged on Broadway,” she added.

Interestingly, Deshpande’s anthology of essays A Love of Any Kind will be released at the Indo-American festival.

Once Upon A Fleeting Bird retains most of the Marathi sensibilities as portrayed by Tendulkar. “Like his other plays, this one too has a unique presentation style. The central character unfolds the entire play, sequence by sequence, while talking to the audience. This superbly captures a wide range of human emotions, using a typical Marathi family as a device,” said Dilip Prabhavalkar, who plays the girl’s father in the play.