Masque

I have always loved reading plays by Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw and many others. But never as a teenager, did I know I would get so drawn to theater later in my life. Growing up as a kid I did participate in school dramas, but never had enough exposure to theater.
When I moved to Kolkata, in east India I reluctantly accompanied a friend to the Birla Sabhaghar to see a popular experimental Shakespearean comedy. I enjoyed the experience. And later when I moved to Mumbai, I started visiting the Prithivi Theater regulary.

After my marriage I moved to San Francisco, and for about six months, I looked for a suitable place to work voluntarily, for only a few hours a week. That's when I joined the American Conservatory Theater (ACT) library. Since then I have had the privilege to watch all their plays at the magnificent ACT Theater in San Francisco. As I had always desired to do, and so here it goes, a of all the plays, that I have been very fortunate to see in all these years.

American Conservatory Theatre 

What You will
by Roger Rees

Roger Rees, a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for 22 years, won both Olivier and Tony awards for his acclaimed performance in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. American television audiences know him as the dashing English tycoon Robin Colcord on Cheers, British Ambassador Lord John Marbury on The West Wing, and Dr. Colin Marlow on Grey's Anatomy. His films include Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Frida, The Pink Panther, and The Prestige, among many others. What You Will is the one-man everything there is "to be or not to be" about William Shakespeare: the greatest soliloquies ever written next to side-splitting accounts of the funniest disasters ever perpetrated on the stage. There's Romeo, Juliet's foolish Nurse, gory Macbeth, Hamlet, and the oh-so-tragic Richard II, joined by the likes of Charles Dickens, James Thurber, Noël Coward, and Stevie Wonder.

T'is Pity She is a Whore
by John Ford, 
Directed by Carey Perloff, 
Music composed and performed by Bonfire Madigan Shive

This rarely staged Jacobean tragedy pits the hot-blooded violation of a shocking sexual taboo against the dirty machinations of a corrupt church and state. The result is passionate and poetic, violent and sardonic, and a classic that is mordantly fresh.

Curse of the Starving Class
by Sam Shepard,
Directed by Peter DuBois

A dark satire by Pulitzer Prize winner and Academy Award nominee Sam Shepard, Curse of the Starving Class is at once hilarious and profound, frighteningly true, and delightfully surreal. A malnourished and rather bizarre family desperately searching for freedom, security, and their piece of the American pie, as their delusions of a better life fall apart around them, so does their farmhouse and the myth of America it embodies.

The Government Inspector
by Nikolai Gogol
Translated and adapted by Alistair Beaton
Directed by Carey Perloff

This famous ensemble comedy by Nikolai Gogol (A.C.T.'s The Overcoat) plays out in a backwater Russian village, where government leaders and local cronies are willing to give a visiting official money, women, and whatever else he wants—just as long as he gives them a good report. But are they even greasing the right man's palms? Packed with sizzling scandal, local flavor, and politicians behaving very, very badly, The Government Inspector could easily be set in Anytown, USA.

Speed the Plow 
by David Mamet
Directed by Loretta Greco

Movie exec Bobby Gould's best buddy has just pitched him a crass action flick that's a surefire blockbuster. But Gould's gorgeous new secretary is pushing a "conscience" film—and she's got after-hours access that could sway his green light. Who's the real showbiz player? With biting comedy and fast-and-furious dialogue, Speed-the-Plow is Hollywood as only David Mamet can deliver.

Rainmaker
by N. Richard Nash
Directed by Mark Rucker

A classic American romance, The Rainmaker is a refreshingly heartfelt fable about a con man, a country girl, and the way that love can overcome cynicism in even the most tired of souls. On a drought-stricken ranch in America’s heartland, a charismatic huckster named Starbuck arrives selling the promise of rain. But when he and Lizzie, the lone daughter of the family, discover a genuine chemistry, they begin to consider the possibility of a real miracle.

Sweeney Todd
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Hugh Wheeler
Directed and designed by John Doyle

In this visionary and re-imagined production of Sweeney Todd, the legendary demon barber of Fleet Street still serves up his justice vigilante-style, edgier, stripped-down staging of Sondheim's masterpiece. Powerful acting, vocals and dialogue delivery and playing instruments live onstage. With its naughty humor and infectious melodies, Sweeney Todd knows how to show you a bloody good time!

Fox Theater, AtlantaAtlanta Ballet 
‘Giselle’ October 2006
by Pamela Gaye

Giselle’s libretto is derived from a variety of sources. Viewed as the birth of the romantic genre, this story of the peasant girl who falls in love with a prince, only to be betrayed by him, before dying of a broken heart.

National Center for Performing Arts (NCPA), Experimental Theater
Marathon 
Written by the Italian writer Edoardo Erba
Adapted and Directed by Vikram Kapadia

Pitched halfway between reality and dream, it concerns two men, who swap thoughts on life, love, death and sex while training for the Mumbai marathon. A dramatic comedy. What we see is two men in the Cantonment area of Pune, busy practicing for the Bombay Marathon. But clues are there from the start that this is no ordinary training session: In the course of a nonstop practice session, they discuss speed, distance, strength, endurance, women and somewhat connected life histories. Before our eyes we watch the entire exercise turns into a metaphor for an existential journey. We find ourselves left with uneasy questions about success, competition, power, identity, and, of course, the meaning of life and death. What's it all about? And what's it worth? Here is a play deceptive in its simplicity, leading one insidiously and seamlessly from the intensely specific predicament of two competitive testosteronal men to those perennial questions about the meaning of life.”

Prithvi Theatre 

Black with 'Equal'
Written and Directed by Vikram Kapadia

This is a satirical black comedy that takes an unsentimental look at contemporary society. The thought provoking play depicts how a friendly annual general meeting of the residents of Apartment Complex's society turns out to be a hostile rendezvous. The minor disagreements amongst the members lead to power struggle and mutual distrust. The play takes us through a spectacle of a contemporary society with clashing egos and false pretensions, ultimately making a sarcastic comment on the degeneration of moral standards.