Anuj's drama PSY-CLONE opens on18th feb

PLAY MATES

Is theatre getting commercialised too?

Theatre gets a new face as TV actor Anuj Saxena and former Miss Afghanistan Vida Samadzai turn to the stage, writes Deepa Gahlot

When TV star Anuj Saxena gets into theatre, he ensures he gets a cast that will attract audiences, though he isn't acting in it himself. His first production, with Nirav Parekh (of Chanakyashastra fame) is Sanjay Srinivas' Psy-clone — which is an undated, upgraded version of the play he has done a couple of years back. Saxena, who recently got into production with the serial Kulvaddhu, several commercials and a forthcoming film, feels plays have their own market and are a "good business proposition." Some theatre folk would disagree with that… The come-hither member of the cast is Vida Samadzai (Miss Aghanistan, 2003 and a regular on Mumbai's party circuit), along with Naved Aslam, Pratima Kazmi, Monty Gill, Kavita Sharma and others. Psy-clone is about the strange things that happen when an engineer Siddharth Srivastav is assigned the job of preparing a report on human cloning.
In these days of showing off minor achievements, Rohini Hattangady's modesty is refreshing. When she had received the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Award a couple of years ago, she did not go about boasting — in fact hardly anyone even knew about it. "Even I found out from a Marathi paper," she laughs. Last week, the film, TV and stage actress received the Vasant Kanetkar Award for acting (named after the eminent playwright) instituted by the Akhil Bhartiya Natya Parishad, and were it not for Babul Bhavsar, the producer of her plays Kohra and Hum Sab Chor Hain, telling people about it, this honour would also have gone unnoticed. She sure needs help with her media management!
Last year's poetry festival at Prithvi Theatre had been such a success that Sanjna Kapoor is having a longer one this year, starting tomorrow, with Resham Ka Yeh Shayar, a performance of Gulzar's poems. And till the end of the month, there will be poetry readings, a musical show on the works of modern Gujarati poets, a show called 'Women in Waiting Men On The Line', on poetry about man-woman relationships, Nadira Babbar's Roshnai Ka Safar, Mohit Takalkar's Tu on Rumi's poetry, discussions, film shows, workshops, music and what sounds really interesting 'Rocking and Rolling With Kabir', designed and enacted by architecture students under Ramu Ramanathan's direction. Those who find poetry boring could check out this festival, poetry lovers will be there anyway!

The cast of Psy-clone