'Theatre can act as a link between audience, Indian literature'

Over the last 10 years, the Vayam Performing Arts Society, which started as a Delhi University campus theatre group, has established itself as a professional name. The independent performing arts group is now set to stage a theatrical production Syaahi, which brings together three plays by celebrated Marathi playwright, Vijay Tendulkar. Ahead of the show, Aakash Bhardwaj, senior cast member, talks to Shweta Sharma about the play, the playwright and the research that went into conceptualising it.

Excerpts:

Vijay Tendulkar has penned many stories, why did you choose Gidhade, Kutte and Sakharam Binder?
Vijay Tendulkar, known for his understanding of human nature and society, and his depiction of sex and violence made us choose his plays. Gidhade, Kutte and Sakharam Binder are not just his most notable works, but are also the ones that present human nature in its purest form. We felt these went well with our storyline.

Is the play an adaptation?
It is not exactly an adaptation. Three plays have been woven together to craft Syaahi. Instances of Syaahi are based on few extracts of these plays in such a manner that they don’t appear to be individual plays anymore. The three plays are cushioned with a fictional story that runs as the plot line.

What is Syaahi all about?
Syaahi is a fiction drawn on the canvas of factual instances. It tells the story of a budding writer whose writings are criticised, demeaned, denounced, and declared inappropriate. The writer digs up his life and brings out the darkest events to the pages. The book marks a huge success in his career and the writer emerges as ‘the goose that laid the golden eggs’ to the publisher. The publisher, in order to earn more profit, suggests him to pen down his own life. As the play progresses, we see him getting caught in his own writings; struggling between realism and surrealism. The writer intertwines his life and his writings to such an extent that ultimately he ends up destroying his own writings.

Why the name Syaahi?
Syaahi is what the play revolves around. It is the guiding force that runs the story. Initially, it is the ink that makes the writer run for his dream. In the latter part, it is the same ink that destroys him. The power lies in the writer’s ink, ‘syaahi’.

Today, a lot of theatre acts are based on existing books and plays. Is  there a dearth of good writers in Indian theatre?
We believe that remodelling an existing play and presenting it in a new form is also an art. It takes a lot of effort to understand the original play and then perform it as an entirely different one. Syaahi is not exactly based on the three plays; it has its own plotline and characters, but you can see the imageries of the plays and can relate to them.

Does theatre act as a medium to introduce the audience to Indian language literature?
Yes. Theatre is considered to be the strongest art form, and can definitely act as a bridge between the audience and the rich Indian literature. Indian soil gave birth to writers like Kalidas, Premchand, Mohan Rakesh and many more, but a major part of the nation’s youth is still unaware of them. If channelised properly, theatre definitely can act as a link between the two.

What kind of research went into conceptualising the act?
 We had to go through almost every accessible play of the playwright and understand them to their core. Other than that, we read about the playwright himself, his writing techniques and his own life. We believe that every writer resides in his writings, and in order to understand him, we had to understand his characters.

Further, we had to decide which stories to choose depending on our storyline and limitations. We tried crafting Syaahi on the same lines as Tendulkar writes his plays. The play was restructured multiple times so as to attain its current form.
Syaahi will be staged at Akshara Theatre, Baba Kharak Singh Marg, on September 16, at 4 pm and
7 pm.