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'Vaidehi' at the Lark

The Lark Play Development Center is "a laboratory for new voices and new ideas" in New York City. Its annual Playwrights' Week brings together actors, directors and playwrights to allow the writers to see their work and receive feedback.

Gautam's play Vaidehi was selected for the 2006 week. Eight plays went through rigourous workshops and were presented as rehearsed readings at the Lark Studio, NYC. Vaidehi was presented on September 14, 2006. It was directed by Gia Forakis, and featured Purva Bedi, Sean T. Krishnan, Rajesh Bose and Debargo Sanyal.

Vaidehi is a 90-minute play for four actors (three male, one female). Set in Bangalore in the last hours of 1999 and the first months of 2000, the storm clouds of the city's current economic explosion have started to gather. The mystery of Vaidehi's pregnancy unfolds in reverse as she struggles to find her place in a society where it seems: "all that was right has changed, and all that was wrong has stayed the same."

 

 

 

'The Invisible River'
A play for Theatrescience India that explores the religious and scientific issues behind bacteriophage therapy.

'Vaidehi' at Chautauqua
A workshop and performance at the New Play Workshop by Chautauqua Theater Company at the Chautauqua Institute, New York.

'Vaidehi' at the Lark
Vaidehi was one of eight plays to be presented at the Playwrights' Week at the
Lark Play Development Center, New York City.

'Damini the Damager and Other Plays'
A collection of plays published by Unisun Publications.


Press quotes

'He has wit and an ear for the spoken word.'
- CK Meena, The Hindu


'Every passion is scripted with restraint and more significantly, bittersweet humour.'
- Ramjee Chandran, The Bangalore Monthly

'He has all the ingredients of a good playwright---an imaginative mind, keen observation, a feel for the language, a great sense of humour and an intimate knowledge of the stage.'
- Laxmi Chandrashekar, The Hindu

'In an appealingly blunt, no-frills tone, the play perceptively looks at the often directionless yuppy. Given the subject, the play [Pub Crawl] comes across as surprisingly unstilted and non-simplistic.'
- The Times of India

'Hard-hitting stuff.... He takes a knife and cuts the cake of life. Day-to-day life. Depending on how you have understood the cuts, or how close to you he has cut, you react.'
- Ponappa, The Ponappa Missive (The Bangalore Monthly)