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play 'To Mee Navech is a courtroom Drama and the author has
used the technique of flashback scenes for narration. This calls
for frequent shuttling between the Court Room the present and
the various other scenes from the past. The operational problems
in actually depicting this on stage were daunting and the first
Director hit upon a solution that was considered novel in those
days. He divided the stage in two parts, and used two separate
curtains to cover them. These curtains would go up and down
alternately and cover and uncover the two halves as required.
This enabled the stage behind the stage behind the closed half
curtain to be set while the narrative progressed on the other
half of the stage.
A
few years later, the rights to 'To Mee Navech' passed into
the hands of Atre Theatres. The owner of this Company, the
playwright Mr. Atre insisted on a new style of presentation.
Panshikar applied himself to the problem and came up with
a true winner the 'Revolving Stage'. After conceiving the
idea, he made a model. The stage was painstakingly fabricated
by Mr. Mhadba Mistry at his 'Vishwas Engineering Works' Kolhapur.
He was ably assisted by Mr. Shamrao Salokhe and Mr. Rajaram
Chavan. This is the world's first portable Revolving stage.
The credit for this invention goes to Prabhakar Panshikar
and thereby to Marathi Theatre.
1966
- Natya Sampada hit upon its first success with 'Ashrunchi
Zaali Phule', a play written by Prof. Vasant Kanetkar. Panshikar
designed the 'Sliding Stage' for this play and further enriched
the process of technical development of Marathi Theatre.
1967
- Panshikar produced a Musical play 'Katyar Kaljat Ghusli',
written and directed by Mr. Purushottam Darvhekar. Panshikar
designed a 'Triple Revolving Stage' specially for it.
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