Makarand Deshpande set to stage his 50th original play

A scene from Epic Gadbad, Deshpande's 50th original script, set to be staged this month. Pics/Ansh

For as long as he can remember, Makarand Deshpande has been immersed in theatre. He started off writing plays for intercollegiate competitions during his Narsee Monjee days, circa 1988-89. The maverick playwright has just finished his 50th original script, Epic Gadbad, marking a milestone in a glorious journey on stage.

This play, Makarand calls a farce. "The playwriting we talk about is after all a farce. The entertainment business is farce, so I thought why not write a farce," he says. This one is a conclusion to his previous play, Shakespearecha Mhatara, a hilarious take on King Lear. The word 'epic' came up after brainstorming with friend, director Ashutosh Gowariker. "I had thought of calling it 'gadbad', because it's a comedy of error of sorts. He suggested that the title needed to be loftier," says the 52-year-old director. Theatre, for him, began as a quest of finding answers to his own questions, Deshpande tells us.

When he pondered on dealing with ageing parents, he made Miss Beautiful; after the riots, he made Yoddha; Kasturi came by when he was trying to understand women; and he explored horror through Seema Badnaam Hai. His first full-length production, Dream Man (1993), was a product of an episodic experiment. Those days he used to run a group called Heads Together at Prithvi, that was open to all. "Those days, there was a larger audience outside Prithvi rather than inside. We used to do short plays outside, more like tamasha. One needed to gather people, make them feel that something is happening here. That was one of the first lessons I learnt in theatre."

Makarand Deshpande

Dream Man turned out to be 55 minutes long and explored the journey of an aspiring actor and singer in the city of dreams, in an absurdist vein. "One weekend, I staged the first half on Saturday, and then asked the audience to come back on Sunday for the rest. Everyone asked, 'how would I get the same audience on Sunday', but they came back!"

A new Makarand
But through it all, Deshpande has been best known for his madness. He recalls during the staging of his 25th play, a member in audience telling him how they don't come to his plays for the stories, but for his madness.

There was even a phase, between '98 and '99 when he got "tired of the playwright in me". "I did not write plays for a year. During that period, I directed Tagore's play Chitra - Kay Kay Menon and Sanjana Kapoor were leads. It was after that, that I found the playwright back in me." A new Makarand had emerged, he tells us. "I wrote some deadly plays after that like Dev Vanar, Vasant Ka Teera Youvan. I delved a bit into mythology. This new me was a lot more self-assured and focused. And I was always adventurous, but now, I took my audience into consideration," he laughs.

One of his landmark plays, Sir Sir Sarla has been running steady for 17 years since 2006. "I wanted to write about love, and write a straightforward play." The play saw outstanding performances by Rajinder Gupta, Sonali Kulkarni and Anurag Kashyap. It marked a departure from his surreal narratives. He says, "There was a time, before 2000, when my audience would not quite understand all that was happening on stage. Naseer (Naseeruddin Shah) would jokingly say, 'tumhara yeh natak bhi samajh nahi aya lekin bohot maza aya'. And then he saw Sir Sir Sarla and said, 'ab mazaa nahi aya kyunki sab samajh aya'."

A constant madness
While there are many in theatre whose work he admires, including Shah, who he loves the most to see on stage, and actor Nadira Babbar, ask him to pick a close friend, and Deshpande takes a long, contemplative pause. "Well, if I have to think so much, then perhaps no one!"

Deshpande feels that his plays have gone from fantastic to real, to surreal to super real, as they are now. But, the madness is a constant. "Satyadev Dubey would tell me that it is my madness that seduces the audiences. So, I should never let it go," says the playwright who considers Joke, Dev Vanar and Kadodon Mein Ek among his best works. But if you ask him to choose between acting and direction, he says, "writing". "You create a story up to a point, and then the story creates you. I used to make plays, now plays make me."

When: July 19 - 21, 6 pm & 9 pm
Where: Prithvi Theatre, Juhu
Entry: Rs 400

Staging a career

Chitra (circa 1998)

Sir Sir Sarla (2006)

Karodo Mein Ek (2008)

Joke (2009)

Miss Beautiful (2009)

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