Sohaila Kapur reflects on two compelling theatre experiences — the experimental student production Rashk and the timeless classic Love Letters — while sharing insights from writer-director Aryan Madhok and young reviewer Caroline du Roscoat.

Veteran theatre personality Sohaila Kapur reviews the experimental student production Rashk and revisits the enduring emotional resonance of A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters. Featuring insights from writer-director Aryan Madhok and a review by young theatre viewer Caroline du Roscoat, the piece explores innovative storytelling, Brechtian theatre techniques, human relationships, and the transformative power of performance. 

Rashk: A Powerful Student Production

Last evening, Delhi's boutique theatre, Akshara, resonated with cheers as young people applauded a play being performed by college students. I was invited as a 'mentor' and guest of honour. I may have obliged the young actors, but not having seen the play or the rehearsals, was wondering if I would have to sit through a rehash of an old play under the misnomer ‘adaptation’ (common today) or something juvenile in the name of ‘improv’, the base of many theatre workshops and even plays, today.

To my surprise, it turned out to be an innovative and meaningful production. A short story had been turned into an improv exercise, with current socio-political concerns as context. The structure was a play within a play, involving a bunch of cricket-crazy teenagers. It employed a Brechtian, breaking-the-fourth-wall style and brought its disparate threads together in a neat and extremely watchable production.

Once, an elderly audience member's ringtone, a bhajan, rang out and was spontaneously made a part of the scene... that's how immersive it was.

Directed by a second-year student of English Literature at Maharaja Agrasen College at Delhi University, writer-director Aryan Madhok loves to experiment. I quizzed him on his process. Here’s what he said:

The play is based on “Rashk,” a short story by Nihal Parashar that follows a teenager named Aman. Aman is the star of his local gully cricket scene because he is a left-handed batsman who plays exactly like Sourav Ganguly, so much so that everyone calls him “Ganguly.” His world is turned upside down when a boy named Shaqib joins the game.

Shaqib is also a lefty, but he is an even better “Ganguly” than Aman. As the neighbourhood shifts its praise to Shaqib, Aman is consumed by a deep, personal envy. The story tracks how this inner turmoil grows until it eventually spirals into the tragic ending of societal riots. The main motive I saw in this story is how a lack of “inner purification” and a lack of understanding about societal politics can lead to total devastation.

It’s a sharp, satirical look at how one person’s private behaviour and hatred can impact an entire society. When I first read it, the story was so thought-provoking that it made me laugh while simultaneously making me think about why I was laughing.

Initially, I planned to do this as a solo play where I would narrate everything as Aman. However, while editing, I realized the beauty of the story lies in the “snowball effect” of how characters are interlinked. I decided to cast two actors because I believe humans are the same at their core; only our information and experiences shape us differently. I wanted Aman to stand out because of his jealousy, while all other characters were played by a single actor (myself, the director) to show that human core.

After the first draft felt too long, my team — including my senior and lead actor Ishan — decided to move away from the original linear structure and make it non-linear, jumping back and forth in time.

As a practitioner of Brecht’s “Epic Theatre,” I prioritized the theme and the message over the literal plot. We used the alienation effect, meta-jokes, and minimal sets to break the realism and keep the audience thinking. I even tried to inculcate nuances from Grotowski’s “Poor Theatre” by using very few props and focusing almost entirely on the actor's body. The process was collaborative and grounded in team bonding; we would order tea from Blinkit Bistro and just talk in character, doing absurd improvisations that I would eventually rewrite into the script as jokes.

Because the topic is so sensitive, we made sure to deliver the message subtly. We didn't want to be aggressively bold or target any religion; our goal was to show that art should make you a better person. We got on the same page politically to ensure the focus remained on the “inside” of the human being, because I truly believe every story is a revolution.

I must emphasize that this isn't just a “director's play.” I didn't create this alone; I simply provided the vision, and my team and I built the entire thing together. This play belongs to my team as much as it belongs to me. They were constantly providing regular changes and creative inputs throughout the process, and it was through our collective effort that the final show came to life.  

Love Letters: Timeless Emotions Through Theatre, reviewed by Caroline du Roscoat

A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters first opened in the U.S. in 1988 and went on to open Off-Broadway and then on Broadway in 1989. The play rose in popularity and quickly had adaptations in India. The most popular one was Tumhari Amrita, starring Shabana Azmi and Farroukh Sheikh, directed by Feroz Abbas Khan. Later, Kaifi Aur Main, starring Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar, was influenced by it. Sohaila Kapur and Sunit Tandon were among the first people to bring the play to India, in its original form, in 1992.

Caroline du Roscoat, a young French theatre viewer visiting Delhi, enjoyed it enough to send in a review to Sohaila Kapur.

I had the pleasure of watching the celebrated playwright A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters at the Stein Theatre, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, on May 9 2026. It started with a video of the same actors in their youth enacting the play. It wove around the lives of the characters, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, through exchanges of their letters, marking each stage of their lives from the age of 8 to their late 50s. The play included wonderful music curated by Sunit Tandon, from the 1930s to the ’80s, incorporating songs by many singing stars of Hollywood. The songs represented events in their lives as well as the era.

The stage set, comprising two study tables, with a shelf and cabinet filled with books, bric-a-brac, and photographs, was lit by spots. The space between them was taken up by a large and decorated Christmas tree with gifts strewn around, highlighted by a gentle red and amber light. The tree symbolized the passing years, as they greeted each other every Christmas through cards. The production was very creatively designed.

The two actors, Sohaila Kapur and Sunit Tandon, expressed with grace the emotions behind and beyond the letters. They changed their pitch and stance as they aged. This time travel was riveting and deeply moving. The end was greeted with a standing ovation. 

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