Half Is Still Full

This time,it’s Lillete Dubey who brought Adhe Adhure on to the stage at India Habitat Centre,on the weekend. “Shakespeare is being played for more than 500 years now. Likewise,classics such as this one need to be reinvented and kept alive for the coming generations,’’ says the actor,who infused the stage production with her own sensibility and style.

Dubey adds that there’s a vast majority of people who are not familiar with theatre and her idea is to introduce path-breaking plays such as Adhe Adhure to a new audience. “When we keep on doing Alfred Tennyson and Anton Chekhov,why not Mohan Rakesh?’’ she asks.

With more than 30 years experience in theatre,Dubey has produced,directed and acted in some of most successful plays in English theatre in India — Tumhari Amrita,Kanyadaan,Dance Like a Man and Wedding Blues . But Adhe Adhure is special,since it’s Dubey’s first Hindi play,one that she has been dreaming of doing ever since her student days in Lady Shri Ram College,Delhi. “I saw the play at the NSD studio,when it was done by Manohar Singh. I had decided then that when I do theatre,Adhe Adhure will be my first Hindi play. It took me a long time,but here I am. All my plays are centred around the theme of relationships,and this one’s a scene stealer,’’ she says.

Adhe Adhure is about a life incomplete in itself — that of a middle-class family on the brink of collapse,one that Mohan Rakesh wrote in sheer poetry 40 years back. “The desires,incapability,discontentment and love is spelt out delicately,” says Dubey,adding that she has worked hard to ensure that the richness of the playwright’s language was never compromised upon. “There was no attempt to change the script,just a bit of editing,” says she.