October is the hottest month in Mumbai. I am happy to be in Bangalore,” says director and playwright Vikram Kapadia as he breezes into the Ranga Shankara cafe with a laptop and with no chip on his shoulder.
He wears his two decades in English theatre as lightly as he does his ponytail. Kapadia founded his own theatre outfit called Masque in 1987 and some of his celebrated productions include ‘Black With Equal’, ‘It Happens Only In India’, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘Tughlaq’, ‘The Dance and the Railroad’ and ‘The Dining Room’. Kapadia has also successfully adapted the works of Indian playwrights like Girish Karnad, Shafat Khan and Makrand Deshpande.
He has also acted occasionally in television productions and is in Bangalore to direct local actors in the Kannada version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for the Ranga Shankara theatre festival. He appears amused by just how busy young actors today are. He quips, “I thought, I would come here and have them all at my beck and call. Not so. There is a flourishing TV and film industry in Karnataka and my actors are busy shooting for TV serials or films. But they have simple hearts and minds and unlike actors in Bombay, they don’t bring the baggage (of their achievements) to work. I am sure, actors in Mumbai would not treat a director from here with the same respect.
It is interesting for me to recreate a play which is 500 years old and was written in the early 17th century. In any case, when its Shakespeare, the poetry is enough, no matter what you wear and where you are.”
He looks around at the freshly white-washed walls of Ranga Shankara and says, “This is not just a space. It is not just cement block and mortar. It has a vibe. The same kind that Prithvi theatre has even though in Bombay, you have bigger auditoriums like the NCPA. Ranga Shankara will have a cult following and a life of its own that will only grow with time.”
Even though he acknowledges the significance of sacrosanct theatre spaces like this one, he refuses to concede that theatre is a growing movement.
He says, “I don’t see theatre having grown. Maybe it is evolved in numbers but we are still doing the plays we were doing 20 years back. The infrastructure or the facilities have not improved. Sure, theatre has something to say but no one is saying it. There are no scripts. I want to hold a condolence meeting and weep everytime ‘Andha Yug’ is staged. The classics are great but how many times are we going to fall back on them? We can’t say the Indian contemporary theatre movement is alive just because Girish Karnad is writing.”
There is so much in today’s India that he feels theatre can talk about but is not responding to. He says, “A total lack of discipline and integrity runs through arts, politics, sports, everything. It gets my gall. The value of human life is low. I don’t think anyone is treated the way they should be.
“ I can’t take it but I see youngsters still doing Arthur Miller or Karnad. Where do we go from here?”
What keeps him going then? He smiles, “I have no grand ideals left about what can be done to change things. Even I am not writing as often as I should. I am doing a TV screenplay for Yash Raj instead! And yet, even though there is no rational reason for anyone to be in theatre, things are still ticking along. There is no reason why I should be in Bangalore, but I am here, working with actors who are not available. Have I contributed to theatre? Maybe, I have but I won’t go into what I did and how I did it. I remember sitting next to a woman in a burqa watching my own adaptation of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The play had a very West-side story feel and the woman told her companion, “Don’t worry, it is a Vikram Kapadia play. It will be good.” People have come to expect a certain standard from me and if there is one such good moment, everything becomes worthwhile.”
