Love, Lies, and Laughter: ‘The Motherf**ker with the Hat’ brings raw humanity to the NCPA Stage

The critically acclaimed play, The Motherf**ker with the Hat had been penned by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis. A piece of dark comedy, the play has been adapted for the stage and co-directed by Nithin Ram and Aakash Prabhakar who also starred in the play.

Mumbai's NCPA Experimental to be graced by Stephen Adly Guirgis' play

The play, The Motherf**ker with the Hat is all set to be staged in Mumbai's NCPA Experimental on October 26, 2025. Through dark humour, The Motherf**ker with the Hat is a story set in the city New York that explores love, addiction and redemption.

The story revolves around Jackie and his life after addiction with his childhood lover. However, when he finds another man's hat in his girlfriend's apartment, chaos ensues resulting in heartbreak and some humour.,

Talking about the dark comedy in the play, director and actor Aakash Prabhakhar said, "Nithin and I spoke early on about how the humour in The Motherf**ker with the Hat isn’t written to undercut the pain — it’s how these characters survive it. The comedy comes from truth, not performance".

He further added, "So rather than ‘playing for laughs,’ we focused on rhythm, emotional honesty, and silence — the pauses between chaos. Once the actors understood that the humour is a release valve for heartbreak, not a punchline, the tone naturally balanced itself.”

Aakash Prabhakar also said that the opportunity to stage the play at NCPA Experimental feels nothing short of magical. He praised the Mumbai audience saying that they "are incredibly open to work that’s raw, messy, and unfiltered, and this play lives in that space. It’s funny, brutal, and tender — much like the city itself".

Nithin Ram, on the other hand, opened up about the challenges of navigating through Indianness in a foreign context along with the language. "Tweaking [the language] would have meant altering the rhythm of the text and with this play, rhythm is everything...It’s got the same emotional voltage we live with here".

"I think this play reminds us that no one is beyond redemption and that change, real change, is messy", said Nithin while elaborating on the core belief of the play.

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