Three plays on mental health to be staged on Marathi Rangabhoomi din

Pune: The city will get to watch three plays on mental health at the Manorang theatre festival to be held at The Box, Erandwane, on Marathi Rangabhoomi Din on November 5.

Parivartan, the NGO started by late rationalist Narendra Dabholkar and managed by his son Hamid Dabholkar, and theatre director Atul Pethe have collaborated to organise the festival.

The one-day event will showcase three plays from young theatre directors. The plays “Na Kelelya Nondi” by Sachin Shinde from Nashik, “Rangeet Sangeet Gondhal” by Kalyan-based Abhijeet Zunzarao and Pune’s Kshitij Date’s play “To Rajhans Ek” will be performed free of cost on Saturday afternoon.

“The idea is to create awareness about mental health through theatre. It is an effort to let people not just think of mental health as disease but something that everyone goes through and how they deal with it. We have often used theatre as part of therapy and these plays will showcase how to deal with mental issues,” said Hamid.

Pethe said, “We had organised a special workshop two months ago and invited young directors and actors for discussions, reading of poetry with actor Dr Mohan Agashe, Anjali Joshi, Chandrashekhar Phansalkar who helped them understand about mental health and direct new plays. The essence of these plays is to show how one deals with mental health.”