3 Chote Plays

An Evening of Power, Memory, and the Margins In this curated trilogy of short plays:

Maranopraant, One for the Road, and Pianovaadak, we bring together stories that interrogate power, identity, and forgotten lives.
Though vastly different in setting and tone, each play unfolds in intimate spaces—an empty beach, an interrogation cell, a shared apartment where memory, grief, and injustice collide. 

Maranopraant (Hindi) by renowned playwright Surendra Verma imagines the meeting of a woman’s husband and her lover after her death.
What emerges is a emotional and piercing confrontation between two men who loved the same woman, and knew only parts of her. What does it mean to truly know someone?

One for the Road (English) by Harold Pinter delivers a stark portrayal of state terror.
A man with unchecked power subjects a family to psychological domination in a single-room setting. In its chilling silences and brutal restraint, the play echoes larger questions of freedom, fear, and moral collapse.

Pianovaadak (Hindi) adaptation of an original play by Anton Chekhov that follows Petya, a gifted but unrecognized pianist, who faces humiliation at a fancy wedding party. As he shares the incident with his roommate Benji, a fellow struggling artist, the play subtly explores class divides, the neglect of talent, and the quiet resilience of those living on society’s margins. Together, these three plays—performed in Hindi and English, offer a bilingual, multi-tonal journey through the lives of those who are pushed aside: the abandoned, the silenced, the unseen. Each play stands on its own, yet in conversation, they deepen our understanding of power, memory, and the everyday tragedies that go unnoticed. By presenting them together, we invite the audience to experience a spectrum of emotional and linguistic textures, and to reflect on how deeply personal struggles often mirror systemic ones. This evening is a celebration of theatrical diversity, of language as identity, and of theatre’s unique ability to hold space for what society forgets.

Punaha Theatre, Udupi, in association with Abhyaas Theatre, Mumbai 
'One for the Road' — Writer: Harold Pinter
Direction and Adaptation: Faisal Ahmed and Bhavya Bharadwaj
Cast: Abhinav Grover, Chiranjivi Karan, Soumya Zacharia

Pianovaadak — Story by Anton Chekhov (Pianist)
Hindi translation: Satyendra Sharath
Direction: Soumya Zacharia and Abhinav Grover
Cast: Neeraj Singh, Chiranjivi Karan, Abhijeet Singh, Prajika Saini, Trisha Shetty

'Maranoparant' — Writer: Surendra Verma
Direction: Trisha Shetty and Kritika Verma
Cast: Shravan Baliga, Abhinav Grover