The Prime Time Theatre Co's new production GAUHAR will open at the Prithvi Theatre Festival...Written by Mahesh Dattani, directed by Lilette Dubey... : www.MumbaiTheatreGuide.com

The Prime Time Theatre Co's new production GAUHAR will open at the Prithvi Theatre Festival...Written by Mahesh Dattani, directed by Lilette Dubey...

November 6, 2015 3:34:07 PM IST
MTG editorial

Among the highlights of the Prithvi Theatre Festival this year, is a new production by the Prime Time Theatre Co, which is headed by its leading actress and director Lilette Dubey.

Playwright Mahesh Dattani, who has been collaborating with the theatre company since his play DANCE LIKE A MAN, tells us of how the idea of the play GAUHAR first occurred to him. He says: ''In 2010, a Bangalore writer friend of mine Vikram Sampath was keen that I read out a passage from his new biography at the book release in Mumbai. I read the biography My Name is Gauhar Jaan! at one go and was completely fascinated by the accounts of this diva who reigned supreme in the subcontinent with her talent and her lifestyle. Vikram was pleased when I told him this is screaming for dramatization. Umrao is fiction but Gauhar is real! I recommended the book to Lillete and she was happy to look at a concept note from me regarding its dramatization.''

Dattani adds: ''In all my plays, I am drawn towards characters who live on the edge of society and yet do not see themselves as victims. They find ways, through their talents, to carve out a world for themselves - sometimes in defiance and sometimes out of compulsion. Yet their human failings cause the destruction of the very world they carefully built. The life and times of Gauhar Jaan, India's first mass media superstar, certainly offers a classic story of rise and fall. Besides, her musical compositions are evergreen in Hindustani music circles.

The emphasis is mostly on the complex relationship she had with her mother Malka Jaan, a poet who groomed Gauhar from the age of six. Also, her reaching out to her Armenian Christian father who abandoned them when she was five, is integral to the telling of her story.''

GAUHAR opens at the festival on Saturday, 14th November 2015.

Mumbai Theatre Guide takes no responsibility for change in schedule.

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