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Discovering his love for the stage

Theatre talk
Last Updated 23 March 2015, 06:49 IST

His is a story of a qualified engineer who decided to follow his heart and not his degree. While his batchmates were celebrating their passing out from the prestigious Delhi College of Engineering, Devesh Nigam was nurturing a desire to write stories and to act.
“I barely managed to pass in my exams, as I was busy writing short stories. The turning point came when I started a regular 9 to 5 job which made me realise that it was not my arena,” Nigam recalls.

And then began his journey of heart. He quit his job in 2009, indulged in writing more short stories, and began watching plays at Mandi House.

He was both fascinated and amazed to see powerful plays like Charandas Chor, Begum ka Takiya, Ambedkar aur Gandhi, Tughlaq to name a few. Soon he was on the path of learning the nuances of theatre by working in the production team, light design, observing the plays performed at various levels and assisting theatre directors. “I found street plays directed by Arvind Gaur impressive. I got a chance to work with him. It gave me the vision for classics and a sense of appreciation for contemporary theatre,” he explains.

He went on to form his own theatre company ‘Cineaste’ in 2011. So far, Nigam has written nine plays and directed 15 productions and has received critical acclaims for his work which includes Kafan, Moteram ka Satyagrah, Hawalaat, Bahut Bada Sawal, Addiction, 5 Kahaniyan, among others.

Theatre for Nigam is not just a platform to showcase his piece of work, but it’s a medium of expression for his thoughts, resentment, and approach to life.

“My kind of theatre would be an amalgamation of cinema and theatre. My efforts are focused on bringing cinema to theatre as both the art forms have their own captive power which is to be tapped so that the ecstasy of performing arts can be catered to a large audience. Not just in the form of dialogues and body language, but also with music, dance and technology.”

There is often a debate about parallel versus commercial theatre and Nigam outrightly rejects the idea.

“The only kind of theatre that exists is good or bad theatre. It seems to be intriguing when an art is classified or bifurcated on such issues. Why a message-invoking performance is to be termed as parallel and money-fetching performance, specifically a comedy, termed as commercial? If entertainment can be given with a message and vice versa, it’s not only good for makers, but for the audience too.”

A playwright, a filmmaker or a director? “I don’t believe in restricting myself to any particular role. Sometimes the writer in me takes over the director when conceptualising a performance, or the writer takes a backseat when it comes to the realisations of concepts and performance.”

Nigam has big plans for his future. “I want to work on a varied number of subjects and realise my dreams of bringing cinema-like quality to theatre to take it  to a larger audience.”

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(Published 23 March 2015, 06:49 IST)

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