Desire to express

There can be no prescription to theatre, it takes the shape of your imagination, says Atul Kumar, who brought his blockbuster Piya Beharupiya for Rangashankara’s 15th year celebrations

Atul Kumar was in Bengaluru recently to showcase his much acclaimed play, Piya Beharupiya which was staged as part of Rangashankara’s 15th year celebrations. Atul has had an impeccable journey both as an actor and director from his days in Kerala, where he learnt Kathakali and Kalaripayattu, to later studying theatre abroad. Gathering his experiences from working with “Chingari” and other companies he formed his own company, “The Company Theatre” which went on to produce hugely successful productions that have toured the globe and gathered rave reviews. Be it the Clown acts, the huge ensemble performances, experimental theatre, the Nautanki and what not, Atul’s work has always set a new precedent and touched the hearts of his audiences. He is blessed with a brilliant sense of wit and is seen always sporting that bright smile. He holds no bars and eloquently expresses himself just like it is in his plays.

Piya Beharupiya has almost gathered a cult following of sorts and has set a benchmark amongst the adaptations of Shakespeare’s works. It is a brilliant coming-together, of “the bard” and “Nautanki”, in a musical extravaganza. How did this play come about?

37 plays from 35 countries were invited by the Shakespeare Globe theatre for their globe to globe festival back in 2011. They invested hugely to bring all of his works in different languages. Sunil Shanbhag picked up, “ All’s well that ends well” and “Twelfth night” came to us. We, by then had already staged “Hamlet”, and “King Lear” and were excited at the opportunity of presenting a comedy. I will not deny that we were going to be compensated well and that was a huge motivation too.

I would have never done it myself! It just happened and the stars aligned, I must say. It was by accident that I found all the wonderful singer-actors through the audition process and slowly we discovered that one could make this into a Nautanki style presentation. I was no expert of that style, but I had wonderful support from an extremely talented team of a multi-talented actors who could dance, sing, write lyrics and what not!

You have experimented with many styles of storytelling through your plays.

It is really funny that anybody would write down a dictum or a rule book that theatre must be done this way! We are in the arts primarily because we yearned for the freedom to express and we couldn’t find it elsewhere. The constant stifling of expression in the society has led us here, to lay ourselves bare open and this was the main reason for us to be in theatre. Theatre is not a monochrome, single stream art-form, it has one billion streams. There is social drama from the activists, some use language as the mainstay and others use just their bodies to communicate. Now we see cinema and visual arts also being used in theatre. Then there is narration around spaces, ideas and concepts. There is enough space in the world for all of this to coexist and much more to join in too. Problems arise when any discourse becomes personal and egoistic. Theatre must be tolerant and accepting of all the ways of telling stories.

What is your process? Is there a process at all or is it all organically evolving?

To keep changing is my mantra. I would never want to stick to one process and slide into comfort. First we had success with this clown series that went on tour across the globe and it was alluring to keep doing more of that. It was easy to fall in that trap and typecast ourselves to just that.

I eventually stopped doing Clowns with Rajat Kapoor and told him that I needed to leave this zone and take on different challenges. Then this musical happened and there were proposals and investors ready to produce the next Piya Beharupiya already! I received resumes and recordings of all the wonderful singer-actors from across the country in anticipation of this new Nautanki that I would create. I knew that this is exactly what I wouldn’t be doing!

I am left In awe when I visit places like Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Some works by the visual artists there look more theatrical than than a lot of theatre we see around. Even at the Serendipity festival, I was surprised to attend a concert that was presented very theatrically. I want to absorb it all and keep evolving. I can never remain stagnant and trapped in a formula or process.

There is sudden increase in acting schools everywhere. Lot of youngsters want to learn theatre.

Life of every artist must be open-ended as I see it. If you want to do theatre for the love of it, please do! If you want to use it for cinema, then go ahead! It’s important to realise that acting is a very individualistic process and there is no path or roadmap to achieve something. There are few actors who are brilliant on stage and fall flat on the screen and same holds even for the reverse scenario. There are a few who are brilliant at cinema, but keep coming back to theatre just to feel that magic. There are all permutations and combinations. Everything must be allowed and experimented with. It is ultimately time and destiny that decides what works and what doesn’t. Its however not a golden rule that theatre will help actors get better at cinema! It has actually worked the opposite for many. They are separate genres and operate on different variables.

What is that one uncompromisable quality that you look for in your actors?

Skill can be taught or worked on. Acting can evolve but not the core persona. I look for what kind of person the actor is and what kind of energy they bring to the table.

Theatre is a collective process and if there is an energy drain, that can ruin everything. Each member must add an ounce of happiness and align their energies into the process of creation and that’s the most vital aspect for me. Their immediate values, ideology and belief system has a huge impact on the ensemble building process. Work once created lasts for years and every ensemble becomes a family of sorts, so staying put together becomes extremely important.

Theatre is still vibrant and new spaces are mushrooming everywhere to facilitate this art form. What makes theatre a living, relevant and vibrant art even in the age of YouTube, OTTS and IMAX screens?

To understand this, one must get back to the roots. Why was theatre born anyway? Simply because one needed to express! This dire desire to say something will exist perpetually. Theatre is an extremely sensitive, personal and humane space and this quality will suffice to guarantee its relevance in all ages to come.

We are coming up with a new play based on “Mountain Language”, a strong piece written by Harold Pinter. It touches upon the topics on totalitarianism and the politics around that. There is one lady in our team who opened up to us during one rehearsals and said that at home she had no freedom to voice her dissent since her husband supported one extreme political ideology. She said she found her freedom in this space and that only here she could finally have a voice. The whole ensemble was left with a lump in their throat while trying to understand the gravity of this. These little things are really the most integral and important things that show us why theatre will always continue to be important and necessary.

We don’t need royal patronage or government grants. We can do with or without them. A play can happen in a royal theatre, an amphitheatre, a cafe or even a street! Forget the cities, just see how vibrant theatre is in small towns, villages and smaller communities! It has this rebellious quality to thrive everywhere and that keeps theatre really alive!

While it’s absolutely true that theatre can survive anywhere it is also a blessing to have exclusively designed spaces. How important are spaces like Rangashankara for theatre to thrive?

Artists run organisations always have a heart. It takes another degree of madness and passion to build and sustain such organisations. I am ever in awe of artists like Arundhati Nag, Veenapani Chawla and Sanjana who had this insane commitment to dedicate entirely to theatre.

Source: Read Full Article