Mumbai, 30th September. Theatre lovers gathered at Ravindra Natya Mandir, the premier cultural auditorium in Prabhadevi, Mumbai, the country’s financial capital and the city of dreams, enjoyed a delightful spectacle on Sunday evening on 28th September, 2025. While it was pouring cats and dogs outside the auditorium, Ravindra Natya Mandir’s mini theater resonated with the resounding laughter of “The Laughter Trio,” performed by Pune’s Yavanika Theatre Group. Even the severe warnings of a red alert issued by the Meteorological Department did not deter enthusiastic theatre lovers from coming out. Braving the wrath of nature, they flocked to the auditorium in large numbers to watch and enjoy three of the world’s most hilarious one-act comedies. This unique trio of theatrical performances made this rainy evening memorable for all the audience.
The three one-act plays of Pune’s “The Laughter Trio”—Asgar Bhatt’s “Chhote Miyan,” J.B. Priestley’s “The Mother’s Day,” and Anton Chekhov’s “The Proposal”—were adapted into Hindustani and directed by renowned writer and theatre personality Sewak Nayyar. Each one-act play has its own unique flavor, character, and theme, yet is quite different from the other two. However, one thing that unites all three one-act plays is their remarkable ability to provide endless entertainment through the purest eloquence and humor by presenting very common and universal human situations. “Chhote Miyan” is essentially the story of a young teenager who, through his extraordinary intelligence and wit, perfectly proves the age-old adage: “Child is the father of man.” The one-act play depicts how a child, with his innocent heart and thinking, can easily expose the deceit and treachery of an elderly man. The one-act play “The Mother’s Day” has a touch of the supernatural. Its main character, a mother, is severely neglected and abused by her husband and young children due to her overly polite and kind nature. She exchanges her personality with her clever and overbearing tarot-card-reader neighbor and succeeds in teaching her rude and arrogant family a lesson.
The play subtly highlights the pertinent issue of domestic abuse so widely prevalent in our society. ‘The Proposal’ is a pure farce that, through a bizarre yet captivating cockfight between the male and female protagonists over trivial issues like a small piece of barren land or the breed of their dogs, even at the time of an auspicious marriage proposal, demonstrates how we often sacrifice our happiness at the altar of our false egos. These theatrical performances, not only brought out the excellent and seasoned performances of Rishabh Nayyar, Richa Bhattacharya, and Seema Azmi, among others, but presented young talent impressing audience with their stellar performance, namely Raghav Nayyar (14), Nora Bhattacharya (15), and Shaurya Bhattacharya (20).
