Stage stalwart charms audience in first-ever street play

A special festival to raise funds for an “alternative theatre space” in Delhi, organised by India’s oldest surviving Hindi street theatre group - Jana Natya Manch - is in progress at the Prithvi theatre in Juhu.

On a platform just outside the main stage where proscenium plays are performed, actors are performing on a parallel, make-shift stage in true street theatre style - open, democratic and accessible to anyone who wishes to witness the performances.

The audience is sitting with eyes glued to the stage. The play - Yeh Dil Maange More, Guruji - is a satire denouncing communalism and conflicts arising out of it. But it is hard to find any yawns or resigned looks on faces. In fact, there are wide smiles.

A man wearing a faint red cloth draped around his neck walks slowly to the centre of the stage. His performance of Mangesh Dabral’s Gujarat ke Mritak ka bayaan changes the mood of the gathering. The instinctive chuckles, ear-to-ear smiles disappear and eyes become still and sharp.

As soon as the performance ends, the realisation dawns that the dead riot victim speaking about his uncharacteristic life was, in fact, one of the most legendary actors India has ever produced - Naseeruddin Shah.

This was Shah’s first street theatre performance. Veteran actor Moloyashree Hashmi, who also performed in the play, said that it was a great learning experience for her to perform with Shah, In particular, “how to throw your voice and bring out the nuances of a poem (while performing it.)”.