Marry-Go-Round:
As a playwright, Makrand Deshpande is at his best when he is not bound by the compulsion to please an audience and can work with abstract concepts. He has built his own fan following at Prithvi, who watch his plays fully aware that his work will not be conventional or predictable.
However, when he does try to speak to his audience directly to convey a ‘message’ the result is a bit confused– as if his mind moved faster than his pen. What emerges is a muddle of ideas that are provocative, but somewhat incoherent. This was observed in his last play, Balatkat Please Stop It, and now in his latest, Dhat Teri Yeh Grihasti.
In an age when live-in relationships, divorces, non binary lifestyles are accepted at least in urban areas, analyzing a traditional marriage, the grihast ashram— second of the four stages of life laid down by Hindu society– without coming up with fresh insights to fit it into contemporary society, keeps the play at the level of a fluffy romcom. Yet, neither Deshpande nor his audience would be satisfied with a hackneyed romcom, so he does try to break some genre elements in his own way.
Mangal (Aakanksha Gade) and Rangrao (Sushil Jadhav) have reached that phase in their marriage where annoyance is the default mode of communication. So they decide to set up an organization called Dhat Teri Yeh Grihasti, that would enable young couples to rent a temporary spouse, to check if marriage works for them (no sex please, we are Indian!). The first people to arrive in their office is an old couple (Ajay Kamble- Eesha Dey), who want to sign up, but nobody would rent them. So they stay on as advisers to judge the participants. A bachelor who calls himself Brahmanand (Ankit Mhatre), walks in and appoints himself all-purpose dogsbody.
Rainbow (Rudransh Bundela) and Bebo (Neesha Garg) come by to check out what’s on offer. They are products of broken homes and multiple step-parents, so are obviously wary of marriage. So Rainbow is paired with Mangal and Bebo with Rangrao, to gauge what setting up home would be like for them.
The situation offered an opportunity to take a look at modern love stories and marriages, but Deshpande gets lost in a maze of slapstick and non sequiturs, with Brahmanand as a fat vidushak directing the proceedings. Surprisingly, a young couple that is willing to try out a concept like Dhat Teri Yeh Grihasti, has a rather conformist view of marriage. Deshpande toys with the idea that marriages are a collection of expectations, disappointments, adjustments, compromises and suppressed rage, but after much tomfoolery, still drives his play towards a fairy tale happily-ever-after.
The play is amusing and studded with Deshpande’s wit and nuggets of wisdom, but it could do with some trimming. The actors—some Ansh regulars, some newbies—throw themselves into the director’s crazily constructed world with enthusiasm. His behind the stage team, as always, shares his off kilter vision and deliver accordingly. That ‘hanson ka joda’ on stage was a cheeky touch. Maybe what
Dhat Teri Yeh Grihasti is telling us, is that marriage is the beginning of a fairy tale, not the end, if you know how to look for the romantic magic and hold on to it.
(This piece first appeared in mumbaitheatreguide.com)