Pune’s theatre aficionados witnessed 17 characters in one play

As a part of their final year project, students of Lalit Kala Kendra of Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) recently performed a Marathi adaptation of internationally acclaimed British play Attempts on Her Life, written by Martin Crimp. The Marathi version titled — Tichi 17 Prakarne —was written by Pradeep Vaiddya in 2010. Guest director for this year Alok Rajwade who directed this play in Marathi earlier, helped the students put the play together for the final performance.

Executed by the students with finesse, Tichi 17 Prakarne had one central character named Aashi and 17 different situations revolving around her. Going by the Marathi adaptation by Vaiddya, the woman protagonist Aashi is seen through the eyes of several characters in different scenes, which in nature, are randomly placed. There is no apparent connection between the 17 scenarios of her life that was performed on stage. Alok Rajwade, the director, said “In the original English play, there is no dedicated script to render the total 17 characters, but to make it easier for the audience; I chalked out the different characters and situations to put it together. Usually, we have four directors depicting the 17 characters, but here I directed and wrote them all for the students.”