Cast(e)ing aspirations

How often do we find ourselves drawn into the controversies of caste and class and the politics surrounding them? Something similar is what Anand Patil and his wife, the protagonists of ‘Aanandbhog Mall’ go through in their early thirties of a so called ‘blissfully’ married life. After Kashmir Kashmir ‘Aanandbhog Mall’ is the latest offering by Aasakta, an experimental theatre group from Pune . Directed by Mohit Takalkar and written by Ashutosh Potdar, the play delves into the intimacies of a married life of a couple surrounded by the hoopla of politics of caste and class. The play is essentially in Marathi with a Kolhapuri dialect used.

Ashutosh Potdar started scripting this play three years back. He was witnessing the tensions among different caste groups in his hometown Kolhapur then and decided that he must do something about it. The caste differences have prevailed in our country since ages and continue to do so even in the modern times. They continue to rock the foundations of mankind and delving deeper into it we realize that it still creates friction among various groups. The hierarchy goes on building to an extent which creates disagreements and discords.

The couple in the play comes from two different kinds of social order and hence entirely different backgrounds with respect to their cultural and social differences. Right from their mannerisms to the way they talk or think is different. A large part of their background makes a difference to their married life and as a result the cultural baggage that they carry begins to show in their relationship. They come to settle in a city from a small town and are influenced to large extent by the media surrounding them. There is an instance where the husband asks the wife to look like Mallika Sherawat. The couple faces a situation where their present is haunted and threatened by the past.

Ashutosh says, “It is almost like negotiating with reality and compromising with the present”. There is a conflict in the minds of ‘to be’ and ‘wanting to be’. They are caught in a regular tussle between the theories of modernity and tradition. “They want to cling to their tradition without losing out on modernity”, says Ashutosh. They come across as confused and disconcerted wanting to ‘progress’ and ‘develop’. Although they are well educated and read newspapers like ‘Pudhari’, they realize the importance of education that is above the petty politics that they are still entangled in between conflicts of interests.

The mall to them represents a change. It stands for modernism, development and freedom which are soon to be overshadowed by the problems they face in a city. They come to the city with a hope of change and wanting to be away from the caste hierarchy that is rampant in the rural side of India. But they soon realize that although in metropolitans ,caste system may not thrive as much as in rural but there is an underlying class system which makes life all the more troublesome. Eventually they find themselves entwined in some kind of hierarchy whether it is caste or class. ‘Shifting Hierarchies’ is what Ashutosh calls it.

The play explores into the conflicting and confused minds of the two disconcerted protagonists who have aspirations to ‘develop’ in this ‘golbal’ world. Ashutosh Potdar is working for the first time with Director Mohit Takalkar. They met a year back and hit off well and the association has culminated into ‘Aanandbhog Mall’. Ashutosh who has been associated with several liberal movements in Kolhapur has also worked with the Narmada Bachao Andolan samiti. Talking about his experience he says, “It was absolutely great working with Mohit. His visualization is spectacular and intense”. Mohit is an award winning director and has directed several plays in the past which have toured the length and breadth of Maharashtra and have been invited to several national and international festivals.

Published on 27th November,2009 in The Asian Age

Operas

Operas have always had a sense of grandeur surrounding them. Huge tapestries, lavish settings, symphony like orchestra with the choir master, sopranos, violins et al are what we visualize of an opera. We imagine them to be set in eloquence and opulence which is only accessible to the elite. What Jeet Thayil and Suman Sridhar have done is that they have executed a creation which is the exact opposite notion of the operas we relate to. They bring us ‘Opera Noir’, a conversation between a ghost and a soprano which is currently being showcased at the ongoing Prithvi Theatre festival. It is not like that they planned it in such a manner but are happy that the final product eventually turned out this way.

“It all started as a seven minute sequence of poetry and music”, says Jeet who along with Suman came up with Opera noir a year ago. They didn’t find the time to work on it then due to work and other commitments. Then presentation of the poem at the poetry festival at Prithvi triggered off the conceptualization of the poem into play. “Sanjana Kapoor really liked the poem and she asked us to develop it into a play”, says Jeet who was then convinced by Kapoor to expand it. “You can never so ‘no’ to Sanjana”, says Jeet.

Jeet, a poet, guitarist and an author of four books met Suman towards the end of 2007 in Bangalore. Sharing a lot in common they built their music band under the banner of Sridhar/Thayil which is known as brand of urban grime that concocts sweet jazz vocals with mean gravelly talk over wailing blues guitar and electronic back beats. Suman Sridhar is a singer, actor, and songwriter who grew up in Mumbai with Carnatic and Hindustani classical music and studied Western classical music in NJ, USA.

Opera Noir is set in the city of Bombay (Mumbai). The Indian twist is the choice of location and the dark aspect of it refers to the dialogue between the ghost and soprano. There are interesting conversations between the two on God, murder and showbiz. Why choose these three as the base of a conversation? “In this case they have chosen me”, says Jeet. The play begins with a death scene which revolves the murder aspect where the partner is blamed for the death and accused of murder. Both the characters question God and demand for an explanation of the turnout of the events happening. The play explores the possibilities on matters of love and deception.

The setting of the play is contemporary according to Thayil and Sridhar. “There was no budget, no orchestra, no live musicians and everything was done by two the people involved in it”, says Jeet who along with Suman worked out on the minutest details involving all the aspects of a play. Jeet calls it a ‘homemade production’. He also opines about the fact that Operas are restricted only to the rich and a privileged few. The concept of such a thing doesn’t even exist among the masses and this production got down to bringing opera to a common man’s psyche.

For now it is a forty five minute venture and Jeet plans to expand it into a bigger and fuller version exploring new possibilities. Jeet is very happy with this year’s ongoing festival at Prithvi. “Prithvi has grown into a precious theatre resource and is open to new things. The core of Prithvi stands for the youth and novelty which is extremely important for our generation”, says Jeet. He is particularly impressed with ‘The Elephant project’ a production from Kerala He is currently busy with the final draft of his novel which is again set in Bombay and talks about the low life of drug addicts, prostitutes and people who always live on the darker side of this city. He wants to create a sense of respect for them through his novel.

Published on 21st November,2009 in The Asian Age

Modern Avatars of Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s works have always fascinated every generation and continue to do so. His works have been tried and tested by different groups in unique styles and substance without altering the main core. Amitesh Grover, a Delhi based director is at the Prithvi Theatre festival with his latest offering ‘The Hamlet Quartet’. “It all started as an NSD venture for an international theatre convention in China where the focus was to relook at Shakespeare in one’s country”,says Amitesh. By relooking and revisiting he meant that one was looking at the contemporary setting of Shakespeare’s works. But why Hamlet among the masterpieces? “I realised that Hamlet was one of his least performed works in our country”,says Amitesh who finds Hamlet one of the most interesting and influential Shakespearean plots set .

Amitesh believes that culture evolves all the time and is a persistent process. Shakespeare’s works have time and again been experimented with by various institutions,professional and amateur artists with respect to specific context. With the writing inspired by ‘Hamletmachine’ by Heiner Muller and Rosencrantz And ‘Guildenstern Are Dead’by Tom Stoppard,the former mainly focus on mapping the explosive political crisis that the world grappled with post world war and post-holocaust.It places the subject in the international arena along with several other identities from various parts of the world and the latter ridicules the existential dilemmas of the same man with warmth, wit and deliberation. The writing here is fresh and although it has been inspired by these texts it manages to bring a lot of novelty to the subject. Keshav Kumar Paroch, who is the writer was asked by Amitesh to write a few scenes who found it extremely fresh and distinctive. “There is a sense of contemporary setting in the play”,says Amitesh.

The main focus of the show revolves and investigates around two areas of conflicts which is firstly the relationship between the right thought and correct consequences. Secondly, it talks about the big conflict between two generations of people and the dilemmas they face while making choices about nationhood,duty,family and love. It looks into the take on love for the family coming first or a prevailing sense of duty.

Having worked with both the mediums of theatre and TV,Amitesh has made use of multimedia as a general trajectory and tried to explore the interoperability between the two media. The TV box entered the premisesof this play with the idea of disconnect that would help put forth the idea of certain scenes in an effective manner. For instance there is a live scene where Hamlet is watching his father through the television. A lot of imagery too has been employed which is open to one’s interpretation and understanding.Ophelia’s death is a matter of perception here where one is compelled to treat it as an accidental event or a deliberate one.

Hindi cinema by far has a lot of parallels drawn with Shakespearean plots. Amitesh points out to one of the most famous scenes of hindi cinema where Rishi Kapoor in ‘Ek Haseena Thi’ invokes a sense of guiltyness in his former lover played by Simi Grewal is actually a ripoff from Hamlet. Likewise there have been numerous cases where plots have been lifted directly from various Shakespeare plays. “ I feel intrigued by the amazing complexity of Shakespeare’s writing and and its transformations”,says Amitesh.

One of interesting features is that the actors involved come from different parts of India. Hamlet played by Vipin Bharadwaj hails from Kashmir while Savitha Rani who essays Ophelia comes from Haryana. Laxmi Rawat who plays Gertrude(Hamlet’s mother) is from Himachal Pradesh and Nitin Bhajjan who plays Polonious and Claudius is from Maharashtra.Amitesh finds beauty in the diversity of their different thick and thin accents of Hindi which add another dimension to the play. “It is a sort of hybrid transformation”,says Amitesh.

Amitesh,a freelance artist who moves from one location to another for new themes and projects is an NSD graduate and then went to study at University of Arts in London.He is currently gearing up for his next international project which is based on developing a relationship between one of India’s first graphic novels and the urban setup.

Published on 14th November,2009 in The Asian Age