A flurry of stars from the Hindi film industry are getting onto stage. Will this lead to the revival of theatre, wonders SIMRAN SODHI-GARG, or...
...Is This Just An Act ?

In his tastefully done flat at Perry Cross Road, Bandra, Naseeruddin Shah is busy packing his bags — to leave for Paris where he will do a five-month workshop with Peter Brooks which will culminate in a production of Hamlet.

From one of the finest actors in the country, it’s bye-bye Bollywood. For the next six months anyway.

In another part of Mumbai, on a dimly lit stage at the National Centre For Performing Arts, Nana Patekar is pacing the boards, rehearsing with his new lady love, Ayesha Jhulka, for the Hindi adaptation of Jaywant Dalvi’s Marathi classic, Purush. His director is the distinguished actress-director Vijaya Mehta.

From his whirlwind schedule that threatens to overrun his motormouth, Shekhar Suman squeezes time to rehearse for a new Hindi play, Woh Tum Hi Ho.
Taking a break from playing wife and mother, Jaya Bachchan returns to acting with Ma Retire Hoti Hai and is just back from wowing audiences in the US. As are Naseeruddin Shah and Paresh Rawal with their thriller Khel.

For their day job, meanwhile, most of these actors and yet others like Satish Kaushik, Anupam Kher, Ashish Vidyarthi, Amrish Puri, mouth bombastic dialogues or get bashed up by Bollywood’s pretty boys.

Finally, it seems, like some of their counterparts in the West, these trained craftsmen have found a way to balance the necessities of commerce with the need to retrieve their dignity as actors.

For a discerning audience—unfortunately somewhat limited to those living in Mumbai—this Monsoon, it’s raining plays. But despite the prohibitive cost of the tickets ranging from Rs 200 to Rs 400, no one is complaining.

Tickets priced at Rs 300-400 apiece for Naseeruddin Shah and Paresh Rawal’s Khel for instance, are sold out a week before the performance. And tickets for Purush, which opens in Mumbai on August 19, are as coveted as blue chip stock.
‘‘The lure of theatre is I think in that sound of the palm pounding palm at curtain-call,’’ muses Naseeruddin Shah. Restless, cynical and disillusioned with cinema, Shah has perhaps been the only major actor who has been consistent with theatre.

Motley Crew, his theatre company in association with Benjamin Gillani, has regularly done productions of Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Pinter’s The Dumbwaiter, Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple among several others.

For others like Nana Patekar who went into virtual anonymity after several ludicrously loud performances in Hindi films, the stage simply offers a chance to return to good acting.

The presence of these stars in turn means a bonanza for the producers with corporate houses queuing with sponsorship offers like never before. For example, the roll-call of sponsors for Purush reads like the sponsors for a cricket match on TV: Videocon, Bombay Times, Bright Advertising, Orchid Hotels...

‘‘The presence of Nana and the Television publicity has gone a long way in creating the hype about Purush,’’ says Vijaya Mehta. Brushing aside mention of his return to theatre after a gap of four years, Patekar credits the hype around the play to ‘‘the script’’. Regional theatre in India has always been vibrant, he says. ‘‘The heartening thing is that now Hindi theatre is also getting a boost, though it is still limited to the elite rather than the general public.’’

Shekhar Suman who launched Silhouette Theatre Academy with Om Katare last year with all the fanfare of a film muhurat is buoyant about the prospects of theatre. ‘‘Oh! there is absolutely no two ways about it—there is a big revival in the theatre movement. The fact that well-known names like Paresh Rawal, Nana Patekar and Jaya Bachchan are getting involved is a positive sign in itself. I just wish that ticket prices were lowered slightly to make it more accessible to people at large,’’ he adds.

As for his own reasons for doing a play, Television’s highest paid star, (with the exception of a certain Mr Bachchan, of course) says that in addition to the creative high that he gets, he also wants to tell that you can ‘‘just do it.’’

‘‘There are times when I have to rehearse at 12 in the night but I will continue to do theatre because this is what I really want to do,’’ he says with gusto.

‘‘The kind of roles and opportunities for experimenting that are available in theatre are just not possible in the movies,’’ admits Farooque Shaikh whose stunning Tumhari Amrita with Shabana Azmi draws a packed house each time. ‘‘Secondly, today theatre offers regular respectable earning for an actor which wasn’t possible a few years back.’’ He cites the example of Naseeruddin Shah and Paresh Rawal’s successful run of Khel to emphasise his point.

But there are those who hold a different opinion. Feroz Khan, who directed Tumhari Amrita, Naseeruddin Shah in Gandhi versus Gandhi, Anupam and Kiron Kher in Saalgirah and Satish Kaushik in Salesman Ramlal, an adaptation of Arthur Miller’s Death of A Salesman doesn’t agree with the general opinion about the revival of theatre. As he says, ‘‘All these guys are basically theatre people. They do cinema because it offers them gainful employment which theatre cannot. But every actor returns to theatre because if cinema is a director’s medium, then theatre is where the actor reigns supreme.’’

As another veteran, Nadira Babbar believes, theatre is an art that is rejuvenating and the reason why an actor feels the need to go back to it. ‘‘I think theatre is more important for the growth of an artist than cinema. Because here you get back what you give it,’’ she says.

Clear examples of that are talented actors like Ashish Vidyarthi and Satish Kaushik who have been reduced to doing two-bit roles in Hindi films but have been widely appreciated each time they do theatre.

‘‘For those who seriously believe in acting, theatre is an everlasting outlet,’’ says Kaushik. While Ashish Vidyararthi who has done a successful one-man play, Dayashanker Ki Diary refuses to compare cinema and theatre. ‘‘I feel that they are different media altogether and at no point do I feel that I left theatre.’’

Equally dismissive about the euphoria around the revival of theatre is Naseeruddin Shah. ‘‘Stars doing theatre is a short-lived fancy. Because not all stars are good stage actors. For the first time people might come to see a star but if the script is not good enough, they won’t come a second time,’’ he explains. At the mention of the success of Khel he offers a different viewpoint, ‘‘This play is an anomaly.

Something that doesn’t happen too often and that I don’t think will happen too often. It was a combination of a great script, two good actors and good timing.’’

‘‘Only a great creative surge can revive theatre but I don’t really see that happening. It’s already taken too long to happen,’’ he adds with a weary smile. More than anything else today, he looks forward to the coming six months in Paris where he will be researching and studying Shakespeare along with Peter Brooks.

But a less demanding audience is quite happy with what’s on offer. Good plots, good acting, a smattering of stardust...what more could one ask for? Unless, it’s some tickets for Purush.

Purush: So what’s this excite-ment all about
The play that is being awaited in Mumbai with all the excitement of a big budget multi-starrer is Jaywant Dalwi’s Marathi classic on the relationship between a feudal lord and a woman he has forcibly abducted. Nana Patekar returns to Purush after a gap of 13 years. He had called it quits, unable to digest the cheers and whistles that greeted him during a rape scene. The play raises some fundamental questions regarding sexuality and gender politics. It is about a feudal lord who takes advantage of the vulnerability of the village women. And about a gutsy woman who tries to fight back, but in the process realises that she doesn’t have enough courage to fight male power. She is then labelled as immoral and forced to live on the doorstep of the landlord. The play is also about the landlord’s wife who is no different, except for the social legitimacy. The play will be performed at the NCPA (National Centre For Performing Arts), Mumbai on the 19 and 20 of August.

Next -