JOIN USThere is magic!” - Dolly Thakore.
“It’s breathing!” - Makarand Deshpande.
“There is human touch and live audience!” - Jayati Bhatia.
“It’s the thrill of a live event.” - Nitish Bhardwaj.
“There are incredible magical moments.” - Arundhati Nag.
Just utter the word ‘theatre’ and the eulogies never end. The excitement, the passion, and the intensity of love for their craft can be felt even from a distance across telephone wires. A small SMS or a message on their Facebook account is all it takes to get a prompt response to talk about theatre.
Otherwise extremely busy and hesitant to talk to the media, the word ‘theatre’ acts like the call of the Pied Piper. The ones quoted above and hundreds of others can be clubbed as the ‘theatre gang’, and maybe their shows don’t earn millions, but many of their plays are running for decades, crossing 1,000-plus shows.
“I would love to talk about theatre. The subject is very close to my heart,” is Jayati Bhatia’s response. Jayati is an actor in Hindi television series (Sasural Simar Ka, Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki, Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin etc) and theatre (Vagina Monologues, Blame it on Yashraj, Mahatma vs Gandhi etc) for more than two decades now.
“I don’t want you to get anything wrong about theatre, and hence this call,” laughingly admits Arundhati Nag, a renowned theatre personality and the force behind Ranga Shankara in Bengaluru. Over four decades of working in films and plays in various languages like Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, English etc, and winning many awards, she is a walking encyclopedia on theatre. Ask her about any stage actor, play, group and she will fill you up with all the information along with her own special footnotes.
It’s this adoration, single-minded devotion which is zealously and courageously taking on the mega-entertainment moneyed industries like cinema, television, and now social media. This passion isn’t restricted to India. All over the world, theatre is something special, reverential, something which defines quality and the reason why many continue to act in the same play for years.
The opening act
Terrence Mann, a distinguished professor in musical theatre at Western Carolina University in North Carolina, and also prominent on Broadway for more than three decades as actor, director, singer, songwriter, says, "Movies will make you famous, television will make you rich, but theatre will make you good!"
"There is life on stage. Anything (films and TV serials) that is recorded is recorded. Theatre gives you an adrenaline rush," says Makarand Deshpande. Way back in 1993, along with actor Kay Kay Menon, he founded the theatre group Ansh in Mumbai, and through this group he has written, directed and acted in as many as 50 short and 40 long plays (Sir Sir Sarla, Ek kadam aage…, the latest being Patni along with musician Niladri Kumar). Known for his abstract themes, Makarand, whose second home is Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai, has also acted in several films in Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil, and in many TV serials.
A well-written, directed and acted play is highly appreciated by all classes of people. It not only gets a full house, but also runs for years with hundreds and thousands of shows. The longest running play in the world, Mousetrap, is written by English crime novelist, playwriter Dame Agatha Christie. It opened in London’s West End in 1952. It has completed 26,703 shows at last count!
In India, we have the Marathi plays Ghashiram Kotwal, written by Vijay Tendulkar and directed by Dr Jabbar Patel (1973); Nat Samrat, written by V V Shirvadkar and acted brilliantly by Dr Shree Ram Lagoo (1970); To Mee Navhech, written by Acharya Atrey (1962), Katyar Kaljat Ghusali, made famous by the singing and acting of Vasantrao Deshpande (1967) and many others that have completed more than 2,000, some even going above 3,000 shows, and are being staged for decades with change of actors and directors also.
Actor-director Nitish Bhardwaj, who will be forever remembered for his role as Lord Krishna in the Hindi TV mythological serial Mahabharat (B R Chopra Production, 1988), says, "I have seen this phenomenon of very long-running plays in Marathi theatre. The credit goes to the high literary value of the content of the play, original writing and fabulous audience which patronises quality." After acting in several Marathi films and directing the highly acclaimed Pitruroon, he is at present busy playing Lord Krishna again in another play titled Chakravyuh, which has already completed more than 60 shows.
Language doesn’t become a barrier when there is quality in work. Long-running plays are there in almost all the languages in India. Many a time they are translated in several languages. In Kannada theatre, we have classic and legendary plays like Hayavadana by Girish Karnad (1971), Jokumaraswamy (1972) directed by B V Karanth, Mukhyamantri (play adapted by Ranjit Kapoor from a 1976 novel by Chanakya Sen, translated by T S Lohitashwa), Mysooru Mallige (a musical dance-drama based on the poems of K S Narasimhaswamy), and innumerable others.
Mukhyamantri has completed more than 1,000 shows whereas Mysooru Mallige is faring well even after 500 shows. These and a few others are legends in Kannada theatre. They evoke such emotions that even after four decades of their debut, whenever and wherever they are staged, they run to full houses. In fact Tughlaq, the play written by Girish Karnad way back in 1964, still goes full house. It was staged in Delhi as lately as June 30!
"Even Odakalu Bimba in Kannada, written and directed by Girish Karnad (2005), in which I've acted, has crossed over 150 shows. The same play is translated in Hindi, titled Bihkre Bimb. In both the languages I play the lead, Manjula Nayak, and her doppelganger. It’s translated into English as Broken Images also, and Arundhati Raja played Manjula. The play was adapted and directed by Alyque Padamsee where Shabana Azmi plays Manjula. In all the languages, the play has been doing extremely well," explains Arundhati Nag.
Welcome, English...
Surprisingly, in India, even English theatre isn’t lagging behind. Till the 1980s, it used to be only the elite who watched English plays. Bharat Dhabolkar, the ad man behind the 'Utterly butterly delicious' advertisements, changed the profile of this audience when he wrote and directed the play Bottoms Up.
"With Hinglish (Hindi+Enlgish) dialogues and star cast from Marathi and Gujarati theatre mouthing dialogues in their accentuated Hinglish, it created a new audience for English theatre, and as they say, there was no looking back," remembers Dolly Thakore, former leading newscaster, TV talk show host and English theatre actor (Streetcar Named Desire, All My Sons, The Birthday Party etc). Her latest play, the ongoing Vagina Monologues, has been running to packed houses all over the country for more than 14 years, and has crossed over 1,000 shows. "People are tired of TV serials. They want good content for entertainment, and theatre is able to fill this void,” says the doyen.
A few other English plays that are doing extremely well are Dance Like A Man directed by Lilette Dubey (more than 550 shows), Hamlet: The Clown Prince directed by Rajat Kapoor (more than 200 shows in Mumbai alone), and Love Letters, adapted in India (1993) from the Pulitzer prize-winning American play by A R Gurney. In fact, Rajit Kapoor and Shernaz Patel still bring the stage alive with this play. It even became a cult play when it was adapted in Hindi and enacted by Shabana Azmi and the late Farooque Sheikh. Its Kannada adaption, Iti Ninna Amrita, directed by Dr Jayant Kaikini, also did very well.
“A play has repeat value if it’s written well, has a relevant subject, and has tremendous performance by actors,” says Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, the woman behind the Indian adaptation of the iconic The Vagina Monolgues (1996) play by Eve Ensler. The popularity of the play and the demand for it to be staged in places where English isn’t the common language made them translate it into Hindi (Kissa Yoni Ka). "In fact, the Hindi version is doing extremely well, and when staged in the slums of Mumbai, it was extremely well received by women!" says Jayati, who was with the play for 10 years and has now made way for younger actors.
The play with 'vagina' in the title, a taboo word in India, met with opposition in the initial years. But, word-of-mouth appreciation has kept it going for nearly one-and-a-half decades now. Today, fathers come with their daughters to watch the play as its subject, sexual abuse, is very relevant. "Not just in metros, we get welcomed in smaller cities too,” says Thakore.
She also explained that keeping the story and concept intact, a little adaptation here and there for relevance keeps the play alive forever. For example, the diversity of India has people speaking English with different accents. So, if a director can get multiple actors performing the same role in different regions with regional accents, it gives a local flavour and touches a chord.
“Initially, opposition for any experimental work or controversial subject is always there. But it’s the conviction of the cast which carries the work to greater heights,” explains actor, singer, musician and lyricist Shekhar Sen. The chairperson of Sangeet Natak Akademi since 2015, Sen is famous for his Hindi mono-act musical plays based on historical figures like Kabeer, Tulsidas, Surdas, Swami Vivekananda et al.
“My idea of staging a mono-act was met with a lot of apprehension. But I always believe that if a work is well-researched, well-written, and performed well, the audience is sure to appreciate it. Kabeer, which has seen over 400 shows, has many repeat audiences. I have to give them something new to see, and for that I rehearse and do riyaz of my singing every day for more than five to six hours without fail.”
The world of theatre has one grouse. Lack of money and sponsorships! “At IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association), we have staged many plays and many have attained cult status. I have acted in Bakri (directed by M S Sathyu), Ek Mamuli Aadmi (directed by Raman Kumar), Ek Aur Dronacharya (directed by Subhash B Dangayach), which have been revived. At any given time, with slight modifications, the topics of these plays remain relevant,” says veteran Hindi theatre, film, TV actor Aanjjan Srivastav, famous for his role in the TV serial Wagle Ki Duniya.
Why, just why?!
Srivastav also questions the sad treatment meted out to theatre. He asks, “Where is the coverage in the media, and where is the money? We love our craft. Most of us have a day job to take care of chulha and roti at home, and whatever time is left, we rehearse and stage shows. No doubt audience appreciation gives us a high, but we really wish more space is given to theatre in the media, so that we get sponsors!”
Another pertinent thought put forth by Arundhati is the lack of space for theatre. In any given city, there are very few places where plays can be staged. A maximum number of three shows can be held at the same venue on the same day. To restage a play, producers have to wait to get fresh booking, which might take long. Many plays become so popular in one language that they get translated into other Indian languages and get staged by regional actors under the direction of different directors.
“To woo more audience to theatre, it’s time stars on the silver screen start performing on stage. Abroad, a majority of Hollywood actors, after working two years at a stretch in films, take a break of at least a year to polish their acting skills and perform on stage. Their names and popularity become a big attraction to theatre,” observes Arundhati.
With that kind of importance given to theatre in Hollywood, theatre gets more respect, artistes get more recognition, and also better remuneration. In India, even if plays run for thousands of shows, how many people know stage actors? If the Bollywood Khans, Kumars and Kapoors take to stage, then theatre will not be threatened by the moneyed entertainment industry.