Mumbai, Nov 5 (IANS) National Award winner Saurabh Shukla, whose thriller play “Barff” iss set to arrive in Pune at Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Hall on 29 November 2026, says his upcoming project is an edge-of-the-seat thriller with deeper questions.
Set in the heart of Kashmir in deep winter, Barff follows Dr Kaul (Saurabh Shukla), who stumbles upon a mysterious village and into a story that unravels over a single, haunting night.
The stage is transformed into a snow-covered Kashmir valley, and as the suspense builds, snow begins to fall on stage, making the audience feel they are right there in the valley with the characters.
“Barff is an edge-of-the-seat thriller with deeper questions about life,” says Shukla, whose own bond with the play runs deep.
“It is a very special play for me. The story lived with me for more than seven years before I actually started writing it. I wrote it almost ten years back, and we have been running this show since then. We have done hundreds of shows all over the world, and it’s really, really beautiful.”
Joining Shukla on stage are Sunil Palwal, an FTII Pune alumnus and Sangeet Natak Akademi Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar winner known for the TV series 24, Jolly LLB and his turn as Prince Salim in the landmark stage production Mughal-e-Azam, and Aanchal Chauhan, seen in Kabir Singh, Netflix’s Brij Mohan Amar Rahe and Amazon Prime’s The Pick-Up Artist, who played Paro in AGP World’s Devdas - The Musical.
“It was written as a film, and I still have that film script,” Shukla reveals, adding that he still wants to make it.
He shared: “Film is a much more visual medium, so the challenge was how to translate that visual quality into theatre. That became the USP of this play.”
With every new city and venue, the production has grown visually, its design reshaped for each stage while its heart stays untouched.
“The soul of the script remains the same. Barff has been running for so long because we still find it fresh,” he said.
“We still search within the play for what is new that we are discovering. It is almost like a journey where we are searching and exploring, and the play itself is evolving.”
For AGP World, Barff followed a hugely successful partnership with Shukla on the comedy 2 to Tango 3 to Jive, which crossed 100 shows.
“His next one was one of passion,” says Gidwani.
“He narrated the story and we loved it. It’s a very unique genre, and the hardest part is getting the message out without revealing the plot. But once you get people into the theatre, the experience is surreal. We have taken it to the USA, Hong Kong, Dubai and across Indian cities, and every show has had a standing ovation. We are grateful.”
