RAJI WRITES

“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 shape a lifetime. What can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record and try and find one’s way to the heart of the man….” Thus begins Richard Attenborough’s epic 1982 film “Gandhi” with the extraordinary Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. The much-lauded film, a deeply moving homage, was made by an Englishman, for an internat

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 our lives, identify what is most important to us, make us philosophical. One of the earlier examples of artificial intelligence on screen for me was Data, the android from “Star Trek the Next Generation." Data was endearing for many qualities: the bewilderment at human behavior, and human ways that he either hadn't yet lea

A couple of months ago, Naatak UpClose presented “Proof”, David Auburn’s intense, Pulitzer Prize winning play, directed by Devika Ashok. Naatak UpClose productions are smaller, more intimate productions, well-suited for plays reliant more on dialogue than action. I watched "Proof" at the MVCPA Second Stage on April 20th, 2019. Yes, despite my best intentions, life took over and I am only now posting my impressions. In "Proof", Catherine, the young daughter of a brilliant math

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 about to buy a ticket to the next play by Naatak, the theatre company whose work I liked so much. “What’s the play?” she asked. “One that you might be interested in seeing,” I said, “Mahabharata.” “I’m going too!” she declared immediately. I quietly exulted and booked two tickets. She has wiggled out of previous invitatio

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 “Rashomon”, I reacquainted myself with the short stories which inspired the film. The Stories They were written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, regarded as the "Father of the Japanese short story". The Akutagawa Prize, Japan's premier literary award, is named after him. I found on my bookshelf the collection “Rashomon and other

In Naatak Upclose’s “Unicorns”, we see an entertaining parody of the “best” of Silicon Valley: inflated valuations, self-promoting gobbledegook, gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment, wily and self-serving investors, and innocents who are coopted into the system. All this in a little over an hour, with a crisp, witty script, and engaging actors who manage to keep the audience in splits for the entire duration. “Unicorns” is currently playing at the second stage of t

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, for example, the romantic black comedy “The Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and her Lover.” I saw it in Westwood, Los Angeles, soon after it was released in 1989. You might say I had led a pretty sheltered life, as I had never encountered a black comedy before. Yep. I went in expecting, if not a barrel of laughs, a reasonabl

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 Company, has adapted the classic play Arsenic and Old Lace into Hindi and has staged a hilarious production. A farce set in Brooklyn, New York has morphed to Hyderabad, India to side-splitting effect. The original play, written in 1939 by Joseph Kesselring, (you can read it here) was performed on Broadway in 1941 starring Bo

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 of blistering bay area heat, and Palo Alto’s Cubberley Theatre offered a welcome air-conditioned respite. After I had taken my seat, a couple came in and sat next to me. “You came alone?” the gentleman asked. “Yes,” I replied. “Where is your husband?” “I don’t have one.” "Where is your boyfriend?” “I don’t have one.” “You

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 celebrated writers in Urdu, Saadat Hasan Manto, adapted and directed by Naatak founder Sujit Saraf. The venue, the performing arts Center at Woodside High School, was a familiar one for me. Sunaina had her annual ballet recitals with the Menlo Park Academy of Dance there four years in a row before she decided she was don