A play on music enthrals all

Mumbai-based theatre group, Arpana, staged their latest offing, ‘Stories in a Song’, at Premchand Rangashala on June 23. The event turned out to be a great hit and left the audience spellbound. Directed by theatre artiste Sunil Shanbagh and conceived by popular singer Shubha Mudgal, the play depicted the struggles and hardships faced by musicians to lay a strong foundation of theatre, music and literature in the country.
The music of this play was selected and composed together by Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan.Through this play, several forms of music such as kajri, thumri-dadra, khayal and remixes have been highlighted. Vijayshree Dangre, a member of Arthshila, said, “I am glad people enjoyed the play so much. After all, the cast was brilliant with enormously talented actor and singers like Makarand Deshpande, Ketaki Thatte, Namit Das, Shubrojyoti Barat, Santosh Tiwari, Gagandeepsingh Riar, Saurabh Nayyar, Shailesh Hejmadi, SK Maruf Ali, Jayesh Dhargalkar, Vinod Pagde, Sadanand Mulik, Sudhansingh Rajput, Hidayat Sami, Reetha Balsavar, Mansi Multani, Meher Mistry, Avantika Ganguly, and Trisha Kale.”
She further added, “The two-hour canvas of the play had several sub-plots seamlessly stitched into one — from the little-known musical footnote from the days of freedom struggle to an exuberant satire on colonialism in nautanki style. Then there was a sub-plot revolving around a smart modern-day composer, who remixes an exquisite bandish by a classical singer. Besides, it also depicted a poignant tale of a family of working musicians, struggling to adapt to the changing tastes and style of music.”