RAJI WRITES

The world itself seems to have turned into a farce. When I fire up my computer and click on my web browser, the news blurbs seem more insane every day. Russ...

Harry Potter is huge in this household. I mean, HUGE! Back in the day, when each book first came out, my friends and I would devour it in days. Days of disc...

Dark Tales of Desire. This was the theme of Naatak Theatre Company's Mela ’19, four short plays at the Cubberley Theater in Palo Alto, which I watched on Fr...

“No man’s life can be encompassed in one telling. There is no way to give each year its allotted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to sh...

This review was published in India Currents on July 28, 2019, as "Watching Naatak’s “Marjorie Prime” With my Father" Futuristic plays provoke us to examine o...

A couple of months ago, Naatak UpClose presented “Proof”, David Auburn’s intense, Pulitzer Prize winning play, directed by Devika Ashok. Naatak UpClose produ...

This review was published in Indica News on Sept 27, 2018. Enacte Arts , whose tagline is "South Asian Stories with Universal Appeal", presented the play “Qu...

A shorter version of this review was published in Indica News on Sept 11, 2018. A couple of months ago, I mentioned to Sunaina, my 12-year-old, that I was ab...

A shorter version of this review was published in India West newspaper on Aug 1, 2018. In eager anticipation of Naatak’s adaptation of the classic 1950 film ...

In Naatak Upclose’s “Unicorns”, we see an entertaining parody of the “best” of Silicon Valley: inflated valuations, self-promoting gobbledegook, gender-based...

The fire engine red Strand Theater is a striking sight on San Francisco's Market Street. A block away from the Orpheum theater, it opened in 2015. When view...

Dark comedies are not generally my cup of tea. Give me a straight up comedy, or give me straight up darkness. The combination somehow makes me queasy. Take,...

This piece was published in India West newspaper on Feb 24, 2018. SAN JOSE, Calif. – The troubled and colorful life of thumri singer Gauhar Jaan, India’s fir...

Naatak offers us the perfect antidote to the unrelenting horrors of the daily news: two hours of non-stop laughter. Naatak, the Bay Area Indian Theatre Comp...

I had the pleasure of seeing the US Premiere of “The Prince of Egypt“, a musical adapted for the stage by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Originally a very succ...

Satchmo at the Waldorf John Douglas Thompson Transformed into the brooding Prince of Denmark. His father's ghost Commanding, owning the stage. The captivati...

Naatak has picked for its Mela '17 production, six humorous, ironic and engaging plays, presented in 6 Indian languages. It opened on Labor Day after days o...

I watched a terrific play on Sunday, July 16th . The bay area theater company, Naatak performed "Toba Tek Singh", a well-known short story by one of the most...

I saw Mira Nair’s musical “Monsoon Wedding” at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. I took my 11-year old daughter to see it with me. She has taken part in several m...

This review appeared in Outlook India magazine in February 2003. "‘Midnight’s Children’? Salman Rushdie’s book?" my friend in the mid-West asks me. It is the...