Blank Page- Filled with Craft and Creativity

Its maiden appearance was on the eclectic platform of the Kala Ghoda Festival in 2015. Since then it has found more innovative, more intimate spaces to create this medley of poetry and theater. The one I witnessed this time was in the lofty mezzanine floor of The Barking Deer in the restaurant maze of the Mathuradas Mill Compound in Lower Parel. The space is important for it is the physical proximity between the actors and the audience, the blurred lines between back stage and the performance redefines the experience called theater. The audience is as engaged as possible, the actors and their art as authentic as it gets. 

Adil Jusawalla, Arundhati Subramaniam, Nissim Ezekiel, Imtiaz Dharker…the quintessential coterie of Mumbai poets writing in English have been fueled with meaning and movement through the theatrical recreation of strong poems like “Love”, “Battle-line” and “Love in a Bathtub”. The interspersing of one poem with another establishes the fluidity and openness of poetry itself. While the man and woman stand deconstructing the delusional contours of marriage, a third actor slips in and out of the space between the two. There is a visual metaphor for the oscillating trap and freedom couples experience, captured ever so gently and non-violently. 

After the heterosexual love, it is feminism and conformity that takes center stage. What is interesting is that these social constructs are not rendered gravely but rather with a tinge of humor and playfulness. The “Advice to a Four-Year Old on the First Day of School” poem adopts a cute mime-like quality while Sapan Saran’s “Bra” performed by the poet herself is hard-hitting and yet induces humor through its hyperbolic sarcasm. 

The highlight of the act however lies in the native Marathi poems “Dukanwalle Dada” by Wama Dada Kardak and “Mansaane” by Namdeo Dhasar and its impeccable translation by Dilip Chitre by the title “Man You Should Explode”. It is here that we glimpse into the theatrical vision of director Sunil Shanbaug (and co-designed by Saran). The performances of these two poems are juxtaposed simultaneously. The rhythm of the Marathi words almost magically sync in with their English counterparts creating a lyricism on stage otherwise only experienced between the pages of poetry. The underlying message of social criticism finds a resounding rhetoric. The music does not draw attention to itself but integrates strategically at poignant moments in the narration.

The essence of Blank Page lies in its beginning when the creativity poems are played out with an exemplary collage of music, dance and theatrical movement. A. K. Ramanujam’s “Poem”, a translation of Pratibha Nandkumar’s original Malayalam piece adds a playful sprightful flavor.  Kedarnath Singh’s “Sada Panna” sets the stage for a reflective piece of theater that provokes questions about creation, meaning and life. Art has seldom gone meta with this depth and intensity on the Mumbai stage. 

Emotions and issues, terse and transitory…Blank Page is an endearing attempt to fuse forms and create something unique and invigorating.

Nothing Like Lear- Rajat Kapoor Reigns the Stage

 

Vinay Pathak as the Inimitable Clown in Nothing Like Lear

It was yet another brightly lit Saturday night showtime at Mumbai’s Prithvi Theater on July 11, 2015. The stage was once more set ablaze with Shakespeare’s script- this time Rajat Kapoor’s interpretation of King Lear- teasingly titled Nothing Like Lear. A solo act for 1 hour 20 minutes to capture the main plot of the protagonist and his daughters, Gloucester and his legitimate and illegitimate sons Edmund and Edgar and the themes of life, parenthood and death- a feat superbly accomplished by the director and his inimitable actor Vinay Pathak. 

Webbed shoes, patched suitcase, the hat and the coat took care of the costume, painted face with prominent red nose addressed the make-up and the clown was ready to play myriad characters and portray multiple emotions. Seating the late comers and cracking jokes with the front row audience, Pathak intentionally established the interactive mode. By repeating “It hasn’t started yet”, he told the audience that they need to be alert and engaged. By referring to the three-month long, 8 hour per day rehearsals and the meticulously chosen script; he even attempted meta-theatrical allusions. Mentioning the mind-numbing TV watching practice and the uncaring “pumping”, the Fool pushed his audience into critical self-reflection.

The local context and concerns were thus catered to while simultaneously enlivening Elizabethan England tragic drama. Nothing Like Lear built a theatrical bridge to close the gap between King Lear’s love for his daughter and modern man’s tryst with parenthood in the urban India. The iconic “Howl, Howl, Howl” soliloquy was rendered thrice eliciting three different emotions each time- from comic to angry to tragic. The countryside English heath was recreated through the storm and rain in the city and truly, the “make-believe” world turned more real by the minute. The use of shadows induced by sudden and strategic lighting takes the audience by surprise. It takes an ingenious directorial vision to visualize the imaginative and innocent flight of a young Cordelia through a shadow dance-cum-mimic act done by the father figure. Similarly, the vehement and vengeful cursing of the daughter by the betrayed father is most powerful in communicating the angst of a parent Shakespeare intended to lock into his words. 

Nothing Like Lear constantly transitions from the comic to the tragic. The audience is transformed into intelligent receivers of art, ideas and culture. Conceived by Kapoor, executed by Pathak, this one’s not to be missed!

Rajat Kapoor on his play 'Nothing like Lear'