Lillete Dubeys Jaya blends Mahabharata with rock music and traditional arts [Video]

For many, Indian theatre navigated a space between regional languages and English adaptations. The latter, often a carbon copy of Western productions, left a void for a truly indigenous voice. Acclaimed theatre director Lillete Dubey felt this acutely when she founded The Primetime Theatre Company in 1991.

“The English theatre scene was too English,” Dubey says. “I felt alienated, constantly calling myself Martha or Jane and having a husband named Russell. So, we started with what I call halfway houses — Western plays adapted to an Indian context. The audience’s reaction to these slight tweaks was encouraging. I realised we needed to find our own voice in Indian-English theatre.”

This pursuit led her to an unlikely collaborator in Sandeep Kanjilal, an M.Tech from IIT Delhi, a self-taught musician harbouring a dream. He had written a musical, a bold reimagining of Mahabharata as a rock opera. But it remained unproduced for over …