JOIN USTale of a Sultan mired by his destiny
For some it is the subject that is critical while for others the setting turns crucial. In the case of Bhanu Bharti’s Tughlaq, while both these factors were taken into account, what the director focused on was scale and grandeur.
Tughlaq’s staging after four decades may be significant for different reasons but at the end of the day, Tughlaq is not just a story of a whimsical sultan who dreamt big but one who lacked the insight to fulfill his dream. A man who wanted the best for his riyayat (subjects) in principle, failed at ground level because of poor execution of policies. Bharti’s interpretation of Girish Karnad’s epic play, was mounted on a monumental scale – literally, at the ramparts of Feroz Shah Kotla fort.
Despite a view of 180 degrees onstage and despite its length at two hours and 30 minutes, Tughlaq kept the audience riveted through changing settings, light arrangements and scenes of action! So, the execution of the concept is well-conceived and the venue used proactively to enact Tughlaq in the manner envisaged by the playwright.
Sitting on makeshift stairs, the audience is exposed to a masterpiece of design by Ved Pohoja. The walls of the 14th century fort lent themselves naturally to make way for a perfect stage, which was separated into major and minor performance areas.
While the shifting lights and colours captured each mood of the play, they equally depicted the dilemma of a troubled king, very ably portrayed by Yashpal Sharma. The film and theatre actor deserves a very special mention, doused as he was in character and one who embodied the spirit of Mohammad-bin Tughlaq - a victim not of his deeds but destiny.
“My sole attempt was to live him and project my character in a way that audiences believe that the words are not dialogues but the inner voice of Tughlaq himself,” shared Yashpal after the play.
But getting a command on Urdu wasn’t easy, since the actor got barely 25 days to learn the dialogues - accent and all. Delivering scenes which required long speeches were particularly tough: “The scene at the top of the tomb and the other when Tughlaq narrates his dream to his step mother were extremely difficult since I was required to deliver unending dialogue in a language unknown to me,” shares Yashpal.
But despite best efforts, what took a beating was the sound projection in the play. Staging in an open air space and particularly given this stage’s size is bad enough but it was made more difficult for audiences since some dialogues barely distinguishable - a problem which persisted through the duration.
But light effects made it up for them - particularly in scenes like when the population is shifted from Dilli to Daulatabad, the effects added to the view and so did the smoke effects in the second half.