The play was staged as part of fundraising for Shree Nrushinhpura Digambar Jain Samaj.
Shree Nrushinhpura Digambar Jain Samaj (SNDJ), a non-profit organization, based in New Jersey, hosted a gala fund-raising event, featuring Natya Gurjari’s hilarious Gujarati play Parnu To Ene J Parnu at the Bridgewater High School Auditorium, Bridgewater, NJ, October 6.
Parnu to Ene J Parnu is a three-act play written by Bakul Tripathi based on Moliere’s French play Le Malade Imaginaire. The play is a highly entertaining comedy family drama with an underlying meaningful “take-home” social message. Nearly houseful audience of 600 people thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and the theater goers enthusiastically appreciated and applauded this hilarious play.
Veteran theater artist Jay Joshi did the stage adaptation of the script and also directed the play. It was produced by Bharati Joshi and Kirit Udeshi. The cast included Aatmaja Desai, Nilay Bhatt, Mihir Shah, Apurva Vaidya, Jigna Shah, Priti Vasavada, Ashesh Shah, Mahesh Joshi and Jay Joshi.
RELATED: Natya Gurjari’s play ‘Parnu to Ene J Parnu’ staged in Maryland (December 29, 2016)
One of the objectives of the SNDJ is to bring awareness, exposure and respect of Jain principles ahimsa (non-violence), anekaantvaad (multiplicity of views) and vegetarianism by organizing spiritual, cultural, academic and charitable programs. The Natya Gurjari is a Potomac, Maryland, based non-profit organization founded with explicit objective of sustaining and enhancing rich cultural heritage in performing arts and literature via theater.
The audience showered praises on top notch acting of the cast and outstanding quality of overall production. Many members of the audience gushed, “throughout this hugely entertaining play, we automatically assumed that this group is a highly-talented travelling professional troupe from India, but are pleasantly surprised to know that our members of Gujarati diaspora in the United States spawned this excellent and thoroughly professional level theater-group, which is a matter of great joy and pride for us!” Some also expressed the opinion that this play is at par with successful and top-quality plays that are performed by visiting groups from India. One unanimous expression from the audience was that our own talented artists from the Gujarati community in USA must be encouraged and that Natya Gurjari must be supported and encouraged to continue staging such high-quality plays.
The overall presentation was also enhanced by the expert contribution of the production crew. Mumbai-based Jaisukh Ravrani designed the set and Prasen Vasavada contributed as sound and lights manager. Dhruva Vaidya, Meena Patel, Tushar Shah and Shilpa Shah also extended their assistance.
Devang Vakharia, the President of SNDJ who was instrumental in organizing the play, along with his committee members and trustees, lauded the “exemplary cooperation and support of all involved” with the program. Ashesh Shah of Natya Gurjari gave vote of thanks to local organizers and deeply appreciated their hosting of the play and vowed to bring more such plays in future to entertain the highly knowledgeable audience.