Onset of the Modern Marathi Theatre

In 1843, a puppetier from Sangli, Maharashtra, Vishnudas Bhave staged the first unscripted Sangeet Natak (musical play) - Sita Svayamvar . He first saw a performance of Yakshagana when it was staged a Maharashtra and was inspired by it to start a similar tradition for and by the Marathi-speaking community.

Borrowing staging techniques and costume design from the Kannada plays and adding songs to the enactment, Bhave created an environment similar to Yakshagana and produced Sita Svayamvar. Looking at his dedication and desire to create an artform like this for the people, The Maharaja of Sangli Chintamanrao Appa Saheb Patwardhan commisioned his work which helped Bhave take his plays all over Maharashtra. He formed the Sanglikar Natak Company and toured the entire state, performing plays based on mythological narratives. They had no written scripts, only tales which was already known to the audience. The enactment of the little details in the stories and the exaggeration of some was attractive to the people. They started incorporating a lot of sword-fighting and war scenes performed by trained swordsmen which became very popular.

On the same lines as Bhave, was Jyotiba Phule also known as Mahatma Phule who wrote the first Marathi political play- Tritiyaratna .

In 1880, Saubhadra , the first scripted marathi musical play written by Annasaheb Kirloskar , was performed in Pune. In 1907, Krishnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar , a disciple of Lokmanya Tilak , wrote and staged a play criticising the tyrant rule of Lord Curzon in West Bengal. It was called Kichakavadh i.e.

‘Killing of Kichaka’ , based on the mythological tale of Draupadi, Bhima , and Kichaka, commented caustically on Lord Curzon’s oppressive rule . It was banned till 1916 describing it as seditious.

Marathi society loves songs, especially classical music, hence the melodious combination of music and drama that Annasaheb Kirloskar’s plays brought to the theatre was tremendously in demand. He saw Parsi plays and observed that the characters were singing thier own songs. In Vishnudas Bhave’s plays, there was a different choir which sang the songs. After this observation, being able to sing became a necessary quality in a person interested in acting in one of his plays.

Nandi being performed in the beginning of Sangeet Natak