Festival gig postponed, theatre group turns to YouTube to premiere play

PUNE: The city-based Theatron group was supposed to stage its new and already-acclaimed play

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at an arts festival in New Delhi, until the coronavirus-induced lockdown put paid to the plans. Undeterred, they have decided to heed their fans’ demands on YouTube.

“The festival, where we were supposed to perform, has been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak across the country. So we are streaming a performance of the play that was recorded earlier and the online premiere will be on Sunday over YouTube,” said Suraj Parasnis, director of Theatron, whose YouTube page will carry the two-act play in Marathi. The play was supposed to be staged in March, at the META festival in New Delhi, according to Parasnis. The YouTube stream will start at 9.30pm on Sunday

Parasnis also stars and co-directs the play, as does Virajas Kulkarni, who wrote the play. Along with them, the two hourlong play stars Shivraj Waichal and Omkar Gokhale in other pivotal roles.

According to the writers, the play is a modern-day Shakespearean tragedy with dollops of drama, character sketches and explorations of morality. The three main characters in the play run a barber shop, till a freak accident ends up with them possessing a corpse.

The crux of the play involves how the pressure and greed changes the characters and the morality of seemingly ordinary people, something that has been reflected in multiple tragedies written by Shakespeare.


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