Kamlakar Nadkarni: Renowned theater critic Kamlakar Nadkarni passed away tonight. He was not keeping well for the last few days. He breathed his last at his residence in Goregaon, Mumbai. He was 88 years old. He has been doing theater criticism for the last several decades. The Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Natya Parishad honored him with the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. He was known as a theater junkie who wrote theater reviews like Baarish.
Although Kamlakar Nadkarni is best known as a theater critic, he played all roles as a writer, theater director and actor. He started working since childhood. He had done different roles in many plays like Sangat, Aaptya, Patis Tera Navwad, Ka Ka Kalokhtala, Ratra Thodi Gaane Phar, Chandra Nabhicha Dhalla.
Theater critic Kamalkar Nadkarni has also worked on the stage. Nadkarni has acted in children’s plays like Bajarbattu, Ganpati Bappa Morya, Chini Badam and others under Sudha Karmakar’s ‘Little Theatre’. He also acted in the play ‘Julus’ of Experimental Theater Institute ‘Bahurupi’. He had translated some English plays into Marathi for the same Drama Institute for the State Drama Competition. He had guided theater trainees in camps in some villages of Maharashtra. He started writing drama reviews in Devidas Tailang’s fortnightly named ‘Nandi’. After that he started theatrical review in the weekly Lokprabha. Later he started doing theater reviews for Maharashtra Times.
His distinctive writing style, critical opinion, had created a fan base for his criticism. After retiring from Maharashtra Times, Nadkarni wrote 400 theater reviews for the daily ‘Mahanagar’ between 2000 and 2010. Selected 58 drama reviews from them were included in the collection ‘Mahangari Natakam’.
The books written by him are Natak Vadhanitali, Natak Natak, Mahanagari Natak. Kamlakar Nadkarni was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 by the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Natya Parishad for his contribution to theatre.