The Script
The Script, June 2007. Issue 6.

Dear Drama lover,

Hello again! The sweltering heat meant theatre groups were indoors rehearsing. And now we will be assaulted with heavy rains and some really fantastic plays in the month of June. Summertime at Prithvi Theatre comes toward the end with some great plays which includes puppetry.

On the QTP front, we will be bringing more shows of our 2 new productions - Crab and The President is Coming very soon.
Thespo at Prithvi in June has curtailed with the unfortunate cancellation of the show 'Katputli'. But the show must go on - and LeChayim Theatre along with Team Thespo will bring you a 2 day interactive reading session, with children participating, of Roald Dahl's 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'. Do come and encourage the future of theatre.

Apart from that, in this month's edition of The Script, we have Dolly Thakore telling us about her experience with ' An Indian Spring In London (Part - I)'  and Reema Gehi reviewing Lillete Dubey's new play 'Kanyadaan'.

And not to forget, our monthly Great Texts reading is on the last Monday of May. Look forward to seeing you there.

Happy reading.

Yours Sincerely,
On Behalf of Q Theatre Productions,

Himanshu.
Editor, The Script.

Quick Links:
Corno-Q-pia:  The President is Coming ,Crab and Thespo at Prithvi & Great Texts
Point of View:  Reema Gehi reviews Kanyadaan.
4 Corners: Dolly Thakore gives us an account of her recent visit to London where a number of plays with Indian themes were staged.
Up & Coming:  All the exciting plays happening in the city!
Great Stuff:  Auditions and much much more!
Curtain Call:  Andy Darr on his improvisations.

Corno-Q-pia
The horn of plenty of QTP events and happenings.

QL

Point of View:  
This month Reema Gehi reviews Lillete Dubey's new play 'Kanyadaan'. The views expressed in this article are those of the author. You are welcome to agree, disagree or comment by emailing us at qtp@vsnl.com.

KANYADAAN

 Twenty five years ago Vijay Tendulkar wrote Kanyadaan. Unfortunately the play is still as relevant today, tackling the a centuries-old problem, of Brahmins and Dalits. The play is typical Tendulkar steeped in social issues and centering around a woman protagonist. Originally written in Marathi, the play has been translated into English by Gowri Ramnarayan. Kanyadaan is set in a Pune based Maharashtrian familyand explores their (and our) middle class sensibilities.

 The play begins with the only daughter (Radhika Apte) of a politically connected family wanting to marry a Dalit boy (Joy Sengupta). Naturally the girl's mother (Lillete Dubey) and brother (Raghav Chanana) raise serious objections. The girl is charmed by his poetic skill and unique philosophy of suffering and is adamant to settle down with the boy. The mother is torn between the love for her daughter and the wishes of her daughter - knowing full-well somewhere at the back of her mind that her daughter will be a victim of verbal and physical abuse. The brother is shattered but the father (Rajendra Gupta) is encouraging to the will of his only daughter.

 Finally the always politically correct father finds himself with conflicting ideas between his heart and mind. Initially what did he try to do? Experiment with a marriage that would prove a point of equality. This leads us to the age old adage that our grandfathers must have cited, 'Do what I tell you but don't do what I do.' Gauging the animosity of the situation in the play I realize that you cannot separate the selfishness of a parent from the human being in them. No matter how physically detached from their child they may be they will do whatever they can for their daughter or son, even if it means foregoing their own scruples.

 The story points out the sad truth that society teaches the Indian woman to stand by her husband even if he beats you till you bleed. And the woman may live to bear the brunt of her drunken husband and face all the ill treatment he gives because he doesn't mean to. The play underlines the indispensable rule of the universe to let go. All the characters in the script are wonderfully fleshed out. Rajendra Gupta is convincing as the so-called democratic father, Joy Sengupta performance as the impulsive man who has grown up witnessing the wrath of the society and the dismay of poverty seemed almost effortless. But it is Radhika Apte who earned my applause - her slight Marathi accented English has helped to made her performance that much more realistic. 

The sets are simple. It is a basic drawing room set up with a convenient outdoor patio set up.The kite that hung high through out the play is pulled down in the final scene showing the depiction of bereavement. A significantly directed climax, it works because it is subtly done and not over the top with blearing dramatic music playing, that we are used to seeing on television or film. The final scene left me with goose bumps and I noticed I was part of a teary audience.

 Like all of Dubey's plays this one is on par with all her other work and promises to have a long extended run. The consistency of the quality and sincerity in the production has been maintained.

 Kanyadaan is definitely a worth a watch!

 Reema Gehi is a theatre enthusiast and a freelance journalist.

QL

4 Corners:
Dolly Thakore gives us an account of her recent visit to London where a number of plays with Indian themes were staged.

An Indian Spring In London (Part - I)

 MULTICULTURISM in London has finally arrived! What I saw this spring was Indian plays, Indian themes, and Indian actors being accepted in the halo of halos – English Theatre.

 Imagine my thrill and surprise when I saw posters advertising Tim Supple’s INDIAN DREAM at the Roundhouse, and RAFTA RAFTA at the Lyttleton, A FINE BALANCE at the Hampstead Theatre, and SATYAGRAH at the ENO – alongside Les Miserables, Mama Mia, The Rose Tattoo, The Glass Menagerie, The Entertainer, Equus -- gliding past me as I descended the escalator to catch my Victoria Line tube at the Green Park Underground..

 Amazingly most of the productions on at the West End were either long-running musicals or revivals of stuff I had already seen on previous visits. The Fringe offered new and better fare.  But my days were few and with Sundays and a May day holiday in between stole three days of theatre-viewing which were marked for Fringe visits.

 My reason for being there was MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM at the newly-renovated and revived Roundhouse and a revisit to Stratford-upon-Avon for the same production I had seen at their premier visit last year. HOUSEFUL boards for the DREAM!!! With the whole cast and crew from India ….what a thrill to experience this overwhelming acceptance of an Indian production in 8 Indian languages in the home of the Bard. Many ex-pat friends drove 90 miles within England -- thinking I had influence in spite of HOUSEFUL boards—to relive their Indian nostalgia. And secretly was delighted that there was not a single ticket available – not even for Matinees! My ‘red bindi’ intact on the long mirror in Flat 36, Waterside Road -- opposite the Swan Theatre where I had stayed last year -- was a reassuring homecoming.

 And to be in Stratford for the Shakespeare Sunday (his birthday week is celebrated from April 23 to April 29) was very special. The Church Service at the Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare (1564-1616) was baptized and buried was a production in itself.  This is an annual act of worship to give thanks for the life of William Shakespeare, and pray for all those who enrich our lives though the arts today. And I felt honoured to be a part of that fraternity.

 The Choir and Clergy in costume and procession with voices reverberating amongst the rafters while the Mayor and some Royalty ceremoniously bowed their heads was a spectacular experience. It was a HOUSEFUL again! Unlike a regular Church service the Lessons were readings from AS YOU LIKE IT (young actors Derbhie Crotty and Pauline Hutton), THE TEMPEST (by David Weston who was the understudy to Ian McKellan playing King Lear at the main theatre that season), music by soloist Nicholas Lee from VENUS AND ADONIS; LLYR read by Peter Hinton and Zoe Boyle – each greeted by a polite applause.  But the piece des resistance was the DREAM Company’s YADITAT HRIDAYAM TAVA, TATASTU HRIDAYAM MAMA to a thundering applause…and in Church. The very recall of it still fills me with pride.

 The very next day I strolled into the National Theatre on the South Bank, and the first thing that caught my eye was RAFTA RAFTA adapted from “All in Good time” by East-is-East writer Ayub Khan-Din with Harish Patel advertised as the Bollywood actor making his debut on the London stage with Meera Syal of “Kumar’s at 42” fame. And what unfolded could have been commercial Mumbai theatre -- except for the strong Brit accents of these second or third generation Indian immigrants. A comic tale of a close-knit Indian family in England, the play opens with a typical split-level stage – bedrooms upstairs and kitchen and lounge downstairs – with a Bhangra-dancing father (Harish Patel) freshly returned from his son’s wedding feast. The groom  finds it difficult  to consummate his marriage even after six weeks -- inhibited by the proximity of his parents and family, and the panic that sets in, spiced with old world Indian platitudes thrown in by mother Lata (Meera Syal) transplanting thoughts “You can’t joke about these things.  It’ll bring bad luck.  Terrible tragedies occur when brides tempt the wrath of Gods”.  And today’s bride Vina retorting: Maybe in Bollywood, Mum, not in Oldham” establishing the origins and roots of the difference generations who have made England their home.Talking to Harish Patel after the show revealed how hard the life of a working actor in London can be!  It was a disciplinary regimen – work-outs, limbering exercises, voice calls, then dissection et all every single day of rehearsal and even on the days of the performance.  It was a 9-to-5 job with the performance to follow at 7.30 p.m. six days a week with an additional matinee on Wednesdays and Saturdays….this in addition to cooking and cleaning for yourself, admitted Harish!

 The next stop was the Hampstead Theatre -- wondering how Rohinton Mistry’s 500-page depressingly disturbing novel A FINE BALANCE – set in the 1975 days of enforced birth control and slum clearance draconian laws of the Emergency in India played havoc with the lives of four strangers linked together crossing divides of caste, class and religion, capturing the resilience of the human spirit -- would be translated onto stage.

 It wound around a Parsi widow determined to avoid a second marriage, taking in a student boarder, and two Hindu tailors trying to escape their lower-caste stigma forming the most unexpected of friendships. Familiarity with the novel, made the adept editing and flashbacks comprehendible -- but the acting, direction and staging left a lot to be desired.  It had Sagar Arya (of IPTA, BOMBAY) in the lead.   Poor casting failed to evoke the emotions and response that such a powerful retelling of those days demanded.

 English National Opera (ENO) Philip Glass’s opera SATYAGRAH –adapted from the Bhagavad-Gita--did not have a single name I recognized except for the composer.  Only M K Gandhi’s costume was recognizable -- with Alan Oke as the singing Gandhi conducted by Johannes Debus and Directed by Phelim McDermott. I cannot claim to have understood anything of it. Imagine a Sanskrit Opera sung by white people. The Brit couple sitting next to me were returning for the second time. The husband was in India in the 50s and wrote a line about ‘prem’ in Sanskrit which I could read but did not understand.  They apologized to me that they wouldn’t be returning after Act 2 as their last train to Rugby left at 9.30 and the opera ended after 10 pm. Except for Ayesha Dharkar and me in the audience there was not a single non-white that I spotted that evening….and this had been my experience even in the other Indian-flavoured shows. Theatre audiences in London have stopped discriminating.

 But SATYAGRAH was a visual treat for 3 hours and 5 minutes in its three Acts with two intervals. And the Lighting Designer Paule Constable and the Video Design by Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer deserve a special mention. A synopsis and libretto translation was provided but it was different from Satyagrah as we know it.  It jumped from the battle between the Kauravas and the Pandavas – Gandhi, Arjun, Krishna in Act 1 to the Tolstoy Farm of 1910 with Gandhi, Kastura, Sarojini Naidu, Kallenbach, and Miss Schlesen (I must confess my ignorance I didn’t know who she was!)   But visually it was such a stunner that it did keep us glued for the entire 3 hours!! Opera abroad is an area which remains unchallenged by Indians and I am sure it is lack of research because we do have some powerful Western classical voices amongst us too! But need financial support to be trained professionally.

 It truly is an Indian Spring in London. We seem to be the flavour of the moment. This is epitomized by the fact that the 24-strong Indian Dream company were invited to sing at Shakespeare’s birth anniversary in Church. It was like the home of Shakespeare had finally allowed the universality of the Bard. They sang the last song from the play in Sanskrit which seemed so relevant: YADITAT HRIDAYAM TAVA, TATASTU HRIDAYAM MAMA -- What’s in my heart is in your heart. What’s in your heart is in my heart.

 Theatre is universal, doesn't matter what culture the actors come from or are representing, it is the fact that we are telling human stories that enchants the audience.

Dolly Thakore is an emminent theatre and television personality.

QL

Up&Coming:
The following is a list of shows you should watch out for this month. The code to it's deciphering is as follows:
red is the Theatre Club show 
and in blue are QTP events. 
Those with an (R) next to them means that we have reviewed it, and if you require a review simply email us at qtp@vsnl.com asking for it. 
Those with an (PP) next to them means that it is a platform performance, entry free!