Acclaimed Marathi playwright’s Autobiography staged in city

Autobiography, a play in English, written by the acclaimed Marathi playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar, which opened on January 25 in Bengaluru as part of a big theatre festival, had its Mumbai premiere on February 2 at the Royal Opera House and travelled to Pune and Goa, was staged here this evening at the Ludhiana Sanskritik Samagam.

The main cast included Denzil Smith, Lillete Dubey, Suchitra Pillai and Sarah Hashmi. The play centred on Anantrao Rajadhyaksha, an aging, admired and charismatic writer, as he dictated his life’s story to Pradnya, an irreverent and insightful PhD researcher.

During this process, he revisits his earlier, controversial book detailing his love life, which touched upon his contemporaries, his turbulent 30-year marriage to Uttara, and his brief affair with Vasanti, his sister-in-law, among other revelations.

The characters recounted incidents and anecdotes, often through flashback sequences, each offering their distinct perspective on the truth. This narrative structure kept the audience engaged, questioning the nature of reality. The play unfolded in layers, moving through time as varying versions of the truth emerged, revealing characters confined by their own perceptions. The intersecting lives of the real-life characters and the fictional ones within Rajadhyaksha’s novel further complicated the understanding of truth. This taut, gripping and humorous production offered a rich layered storytelling.