Russian writer Maxim Gorky’s 1902 play, The Lower Depths has seen many film and theatre adaptations over the years. From the 1946 Hindi film Neecha Nagar that won the The Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival that year to the 1957 Japanese film by the same name, the play has been alive in the entertainment world across decades. Now, bringing it to the stage once again, the In-person batch of 2022-23 of Drama School Mumbai will be performing the production at G5A Warehouse today.

Helmed by actor, director and writer Rasika Agashe, the play is adapted to a Mumbai setting based on the 1958 Hindi translation. “While adapting the play for stage, the productions have always been Russian-based. This is the first time that an adaptation talks about Mumbai’s lower classes. Even for plays in general, they mostly tell the stories of the middle-class. So, we tried to make this a story about the lives and dreams of a class that has been sidelined,” Agashe tells us in a conversation. She reveals that the title of the play ‘Log Jo Dikhte Nahi’ came from the idea of how the people who live on the streets are seen everywhere in the city, and yet, ignored by the society.