Exclusive Audio Cut- Politics x Theatre | Ft. Sunil Shanbag & Geetanjali Kulkarni

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of Unscripted with Akarsh Khurana, an Aadyam podcast produced by M&M Talkies. I am your host, Akarsh Khurana, ready with an exciting and thoughtful conversation for you. Unscripted with Akarsh Khurana, an Aadyam podcast produced by M&M Talkies. So today's episode will deal with politics. Yes, you heard that right. Now most of us want to play it safe,

[00:00:26] prefer being under the radar and not instigate any trouble. But there are ever so often some of us who decide to raise their voice and bring about a change. Well, change or not, theatre has always been and will always be a medium that allows for us to express and therefore question what is and isn't happening. There is a deep connection between the politics of a nation and the kind of theatre that

[00:00:51] is being made, whether we realise it or not. The scripts being written, the choices being made, the performances staged, consciously or subconsciously are constantly influenced by the state of the nation. Now, like I said, some of us play it safe while the others want to embrace the risque. Now across generations there have been theatre makers who have brought about change, asked questions, pushed the masses to think more and staged pieces trying to achieve a greater aim.

[00:01:19] And theatre has been the voice of a nation, a medium of interrogation, introspection and entertainment. Now, to have a deeper conversation about the same, we have two very prestigious guests. The notoriously political theatre maker, redound director Sunil Shanbagh, and the insanely talented actress, acing many forms and styles, Gita Anjali Kilkanand. So let's begin the episode from the beginning itself. Meaning, Gita Anjali,

[00:01:47] how did you get into NSD? And also, while you're talking about that, just a few thoughts about whether or not one should get formal academic training in a practical field like theatre. During my third year of BA, there was this very young professor, Sudhan Ayur, and she told me that you should get into NSD. And that's why I went to NSD. Parents were supportive of NSD? No, not at all, initially. But you know, NSD used to give

[00:02:17] scholarship. Okay. It was just mere 600, yeah, mere 600 rupees. And, but that helped me and I could rebel, you know. See, though you come from a middle class, privileged family, you have to rebel. And this is where, you know, system helps you. Then you get scholarships and all. At that time, it was quite easy. So it was, there was one interview in one of the centers. One of the centers was Mumbai.

[00:02:45] And then we went to Delhi, those who were shortlisted. And there was a four-day workshop. It was such a interesting affair, you know, like we used to do improvisations. All the youngsters from all over India used to come there. We used to cook, we used to do our improvisations, exercises. And you're watched. Yeah, and you're watched constantly by the panel. No, I know the process. It's very interesting. Yeah, four days and then, you know. Four days, yeah. And they're watching. I feel that because of NSD,

[00:03:13] what I am today, I always, you know, all my interviews and all my, you know, wherever I go, I tell that it was like my rebirth. Right. Because the kind of family I belong to, the kind of, you know, conditioning I had, it all changed when I came to India because of my teachers, because of the, because of my classmates who came from all over India. Right. To this day, if I had a second chance, I would go and train. Yeah, you think so? Yeah, I think so. I think,

[00:03:42] I think, no, I think there are some huge advantages on about, you know, learning on the job, huge advantages, no question about it. But I think somewhere the theory, the history, you know, that kind of structured learning, I miss to this day. I do that on my own. And luckily, in the early days, not later, early days, Dubey used to encourage that. Later, he became very dismissive about all that, you know. But early days, he had a pretty decent library in his house. Right. And I would sit there and I would just read, read, read, because I had,

[00:04:10] there was no other source of knowledge or information about theatre, especially theatre history. Speaking of training, Sunil, you worked extensively under theatre legend, Pandit Satyadev Dubey, in your early and formative years. And I want to talk a little bit about what, you know, key productions or factors influenced you back in the day. And Gitanjali, you as well, like, you know, any key productions that inspired, you know, the young Gitanjali Kulkarni?

[00:04:37] If you're going into that, I think, I think for me, it was just more than Dubey. It was actually the time when I was learning my theatre. Right. And between 74 to 83, I was working, 82, I was working with Dubey, right? Almost like nine or 10 years. This was also the time when there was a huge shift happening in theatre of a particular kind. The commercial theatre was happening. And we used to see that also. But if you talk about a time when you're what is known as the experimental theatre of

[00:05:05] that time. But that was a very important moment historically all over the world and also in India, where people were really groping and searching for things. The question of why you were doing what you were doing was a very major question. You just didn't do a play because you felt like doing a play. I think for me, the first production that convinced me that I had to look at the possibility of a life in the theatre was Dubey's Haivadhan, for instance. You know, the first time I went to see it at Tejpal

[00:05:32] auditorium, empty stage, blank stage, there must have been one, you know, battered steel folding chair and, you know, not very nice curtains because that theatre is designed for, you know, commercial sets. So they don't need to, there's no upkeep in the theatre, right? And on that stage with three halogen lights, no fancy lighting, these actors created magic. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. In fact, you know, this was a play, this Girish Karnat's play. Have you read it before you saw it?

[00:06:01] No, I just went there out of the blue. Okay. And I saw this play and Amrish Puri was in it, Amol Palekar was in it, Dina Patak was in it. And because I had gone with someone who knew these people. So we went backstage and I just couldn't get over the fact that Amol Palekar was playing this, you know, very beautiful saintly poet type character, Devdath was sitting backstage and smoking a cigarette. And I had one of those moments, Devdath can't be smoking, you know.

[00:06:31] Three years of NSD, I think, it was a major turning point in my life because I saw, I studied theatre, I saw different kinds of productions. The teachers at NSD, you know, I still remember Nibha Joshi used to teach us aesthetics and I had never seen paintings in my life, you know. When she used to introduce us to Renaissance period or Egyptian art or Japanese art or Harappa and you know, all these things. And

[00:07:00] it has connection with theatre was a big thing for me. I never imagined. GPD came and he completely changed my mindset, Gopu Deshpande, about modern Marathi theatre. And I was under the impression that, you know, Marathi middle class is so important and how we have tradition of theatre and all these things. But he changed and he said, no, first play was written by Mahatma Pule in 1850 and not Vishnuda's Bhave.

[00:07:26] And why Marathi Brahmins have, you know, like almost snatched that medium and you know, they have made it theirs. And you know, all the Marathi theatre identity belongs to this middle class Brahminical system. So yeah, so he changed the politics. Sunil, what do you think pushed you to take such a, how do you say, political trajectory with your choice of performances to be staged?

[00:07:55] And similarly for Ginnanjali, I mean, what drove you to pursue an active interest in the merging of academics with your theatre interests? My own family background was, you know, there was quite political in that sense. Okay. My father in his younger days was a, you know, was quite actively involved in left-wing politics. My mother came up from a family that was involved in politics. My uncle was a very senior member of the erstwhile communist party of India.

[00:08:25] Okay. And post-independence, he was in jail for several years when the CPI had been banned. And so there is that kind of background. My sister, after her, you know, period at Elphinstone College, she was two and a half years older than me. She got extremely, very deeply involved in politics as an activist. So that was there. So the home often used to be a battleground of, yeah, arguments and discussions and that kind of thing. So mine was very much the liberal position and all that. I mean, all of them were far more,

[00:08:53] you know, they were more thoughtful, more realized as in their thinking. Mine was the liberal position, but you had to, you couldn't but help being influenced by all that. I don't think I can ever do a comedy because just we want to laugh. Yeah. No, but it's a burden. It's a burden also. No bedroom forces on your resume. Yeah, it's a burden. Yeah. When I came out of NSD and me and my husband, we were, so we were trying to see what else can we add, you know, in our life.

[00:09:22] And that time I, we met Nilesh Nimkar who was an educationist. He was working with one of the major institutes, educational institutes in Palghar district. At that time it was Thane district. And he used to conduct these study groups where we used to go and learn about primary education, elementary education, aspects of elementary education. And that was quite interesting.

[00:09:49] Then at the end of the study group, it lasted for a year. Nilesh said that we have to, you know, I'm leaving my NGO and I want to start my own NGO. So we all gathered together to, you know, help him. And we were all part of Quest, Quality Education Support Trust.

[00:10:37] Yes, yes. So we started working with those soft skills and slowly we started working with the locals also, youngsters from local areas. And then we got to this point of, you know, Goshtaranga where we thought that we can use theatre as a medium to enhance reading and writing skills in students. And that's why dramatization of children's literature in schools. So we run this program from 2014 onwards.

[00:11:05] And that time really I got an idea that what it is to perform for children or in rural area. During my four or five years of Goshtaranga, I realized I worked with Quest for nearly 12 years. There's a lot of corporatization of NGOs is happening. So that got me a little, you know, again, you know, my purpose was not that. Again, I'm not an administrator. So that I don't fit into that role at all. So I thought that I'm very good with children. I can curate programs for them.

[00:11:33] I can bring in people, you know, because I have got contacts. So I thought that I'll work with 10, 12 children so that, you know, they get personal attention. We have to understand as a society that the knowledge these people have, the wisdom they have and the culture, you know, it comes, it's in their blood. So we have, as educated people or privileged people, we have to give that dignity to these people.

[00:12:03] Like, you know, we used in 70s, they used all these folk forms in theater. Right. You know, Ratanthiam or Habibji or, you know, all these people, or even in Gashiram Kotwal, Tendulkar used Tamash artists. Theater of roots. Theater of roots. So we, it's, I think that, that as, when I was working with Quest, we were doing interdisciplinary thing, education and theater.

[00:12:32] Like, likewise, we have to, the urban theater and the traditional folk theater has to mingle. And, you know, then we will be also, we will also benefit from it. Not just those people. No, but there is always, you see, there is also this danger of appropriation. Yeah. Okay. Now you are, you know, when I say you, I don't mean you particularly, but an urban practitioner is in a position of power much more.

[00:12:59] You know, we have any of examples where an urban theater practitioner picks up a folk performer as part of their work. Yeah. And very, it's almost like I have discovered this. Right. You know, and you understand. Yeah, you know, a 300 year old tradition. You just picked it up and start using it. And suddenly it's yours. You know, that. So we have to be very, very careful about that. I don't know how many people know this, but Sunil Shanbagh has two theater companies. There is Arpana and Tamasha.

[00:13:28] And both of these groups have done some extremely interesting work. Sunil, tell us a little bit about them and the differences between them. So what happened was that in the last, you know, the last part of Arpana's existence, we were doing a lot of work. Okay. And the productions in scale were growing. And as a theater producer, director, you know that the minute the stakes go up, then you have to plan much more.

[00:13:57] You know, you start asking, am I taking artistic risks? See, making the play is just one part of it, then running it, recovering costs, you know, so many things. So two things. One is that am I in a position now to take risks, work on impulse? Or has everything to be so perfectly planned? Like how we are doing now. We pre-book our dates a year in advance, you know, so that puts a certain rigidity on your system, right? That was one thing.

[00:14:24] The other thing was that, you know, is theater only about scale and mounting? You know, what about the ideas? What happens to the ideas? Yes. The third thing was that even in a Prithvi theater, which is a small space and much more in a bigger auditorium, you don't know who's coming to watch your play. Right. Eight, ten friends after the first run of shows, they're strangers. Yes. It's transactional. They buy a ticket, they sit in the dark, watch the play and go away. And I was feeling a little uncomfortable. I said, I want to know who's coming to watch my plays. Okay.

[00:14:53] I want to know them as people. You know, I'm always grateful when people come to watch a play because there's so many other things you can do. Then we said, let's start looking at small spaces. Look at plays that are idea centric and not mounted productions. And let's work with younger people and create a kind of an ecosystem around the making of plays. Not widen the definition of theater beyond just producing and performing plays. You know, so we're talking about training.

[00:15:23] You're talking about reading your research, meeting many things really widen the definition of theater. So that's how Tamasha began actually. So, you know, when we're talking about using theater to kind of raise your voice, it's absolutely impossible to overlook the most famous and wonderful production that Gitanjali and Sunil did together, which is sex morality and censorship. And, you know, through that, we'll also talk maybe a little bit, Sunil,

[00:15:51] about your personal struggles and battles with censorship per se. I was sitting at Bangalore Airport one day waiting to come back to Bombay. And two or three things had happened, you know. One was that this was when the first BJP government had come into power at the center. That was a brief period when they were there. And we used to, I used to be a documentary filmmaker also.

[00:16:16] And it was during this period that there was a big, there was censorship of documentary films in the Mumbai International Film Festival. Oh, really? Yes, yes. And that was for the first time, you know, we sort of started seeing that happen. And then there was a parallel festival and protests, etc., etc. Hussein's paintings had been slashed. Yes. And attacked. Yes. You know, the atmosphere had started changing.

[00:16:44] And I said, you know, this is something that really we should be talking about. So, we are theater people. Let's talk about censorship in theater because that's something that's close to heart. And then when you say, let's talk about censorship in theater and you're producing in Maharashtra and in Bombay, then in 1972, the iconic case study of censorship is Sakharam Binder. You know, and the advantage of Sakharam Binder is that it's a documented episode. Yes.

[00:17:10] You know, there is a book, Binder Chee Divas, that the producer, director of the play actually wrote himself. Many of the people who were part of that production or who were active at that time were still alive at that time. So, we could actually go and interview them and do that kind of thing. So, the idea was to look at censorship and try and understand why it happens and, you know, why does the state or why does the society say no to something? So, the play grew out of that.

[00:17:40] It was an idea and then that grew. Shanta Gokhale came in and gave us a very, very tight framework to work in. Irrawati came in and did a lot of the research. So, we worked on it for almost nine months to a year before going into rehearsal. Right. So, the script was developed from scratch. So, that was the idea of that play. There was no problem in terms of the playing script.

[00:18:02] In fact, you know, there was a scene, a documented scene that, you know, Kamdakar Sarang had actually talked about an interaction that he had with the censor board when his play was being sort of resisted. Right. So, that is recreated on stage. We also used to, you know, make fun of the fact that you don't get a permanent certificate. You always, when your plays are slightly dicey, they give you a provisional certificate and then they just check out what's the reaction to the play. And if there is some kind of hostile reaction to the play, then they withdraw the certificate.

[00:18:31] And our play at that time had a temporary certificate. Right. So, and which we used to say at the end, you know, we've got a temporary certificate. And then the day we got a permanent certificate, we were both disappointed because then we couldn't crack that joke. It was not really sex morality that, actually, Cotton 56 Polyester 84 ran into trouble. Okay. And they said, we have a rule. They could never show us that rule. But we have a rule that you cannot talk about living politicians.

[00:18:57] And that play used to talk about Bal Thakre and his role of the Shiv Sena, you know, in history at that time. The Shiv Sena, you know, and against the communist unions. Right. Mill workers at communist unions. Right. So, they said, you can't have any reference to Bal Thakre in this or anybody else who's a living politician. Right. There was a time when I would arrive at the sensible with the script and they would say, oh my God, here we go again. That kind of thing.

[00:19:21] There was one play, I won't take the name now because it's too recent, where we had to negotiate what I could keep and what I would give up. Wow. Yeah. I was going to ask what your riskiest production was. Yeah. Actually, if you want that, sir, then you'll have to give up something else. The most absurd thing to try and do is to censor live performance. You know, as a director, you have no control over what your actors are going to do. Some guy sitting there, censor what is going to control? No. Give me a break. Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:50] You know, and do you have people to monitor every live performance in the country, in the state that are you sticking to? It's a joke. It's a joke. I mean, morally and, you know, in terms of the, on principle, it's completely, you know, not acceptable. But even in a practical level, what are you trying to impose? It's ridiculous. Do you know every song that you sing has to be in public, has to also be censored?

[00:20:16] But any live performance, I think our biggest worry is actually self-censorship. And that is the intent, that you create an atmosphere of fear so that you don't have to do anything after that. People censor themselves. And then, you know, that's how you, that's the whole idea of creating an atmosphere of fear. Right. Yeah. Then you don't have to go around catching individuals. Everybody's just so scared that they're not doing anything. Right.

[00:20:38] So I think you, as artists, we have to, and I'm not saying this, that everybody has to do it, but those of us who are interested in this kind of work and feel that that's important. Secondly, is not to take ourselves that seriously, thinking that, you know, that our work is going to lead to some incredible change. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And this is what I mean when I said that theater has a very, very limited reach. Reach, yes. But what I think is very important that in the landscape of performances, theater, music,

[00:21:07] if somebody were to say, somebody were to go on to book my show and say, what do I watch today or this weekend? And at the end of their search, they might choose the most conventional, obvious thing to watch. Right. They might go to NMAC and see something, Life of Pi or something. Right. That doesn't matter. But in their search, do they also come upon other kinds of work that are not conventional, that are questioning? Right. That you become aware that, oh, it is possible for these things to coexist.

[00:21:35] There can be work about that questions that's political, that's asking questions of the state, of society, etc. That exists. Our biggest worry today is that all that is becoming invisible. The idea is to wipe it out completely. The mainstream strength and power can never be underestimated. You know, I'm saying that today we have to survive this so that we remain, something remains. And it's not very difficult for them to wipe us out, make us completely invisible and irrelevant.

[00:22:05] So I think that's really the, I think that's really what we can do. That's what I do when I work with children. Right. So introducing books like, you know, The Wai Wai Girl or Our Amazing Cow or Carver. So introducing these books to them. As an ideology, there is something. Yes, absolutely. Where you question. She's absolutely right. So I feel that more than censorship, we need education. Yes.

[00:22:31] And if we, at our personal level, not necessarily, you know, everybody can, as Sunil said, everybody can do mainstream stuff. But we have to keep that thing alive. I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge a massive watershed moment in the history of Indian theatre. Yeah, I am talking about the most unfortunate and premature demise of Safdar Hashmi. I mean, yeah, where were you guys when you heard the news?

[00:23:01] And what was the vibe around? I think everybody was very disturbed. Everybody was very disturbed by what had happened. Because that was really very in your face. And, you know, it was a person that had been killed here. Yeah, I was in Mumbai. I think I was in college or school and I read it in the newspaper. And when I went to NSD, it was just the next lane. Right. Where he was killed. Right. Oh, yeah. Okay.

[00:23:24] So, that really hit me a lot, you know, when I was like, when I was walking and I realized that it's Safdar Hashmi rule. No, I think there was, in fact, quite a strong response to that. Right. Yeah. And interestingly, at that time, there was a space for that kind of response was possible. Yeah. So, immediately the next day, they were back there performing. Right. Right. Then the annual, on the 1st of January, the festivals started happening.

[00:23:51] You know, there was a kind of a swelling support at that time. You know, there was an upswell. And it happened. It happened. But, you know, how these things are. They're there up to a point and then they slowly dissipate. And some people keep it alive and that kind of thing. Also, I think it affected and it impacted far more directly those who were doing activist theater. Right. You know, street theater actively out there. Our theater is not really like that. Right. Yes.

[00:24:20] For me, I personally don't see myself as an activist, really. You know. So, in that sense, it didn't have a direct impact. But I do know that among street theater performers, it had a very, very strong impact. Then, of course, street theater has got completely NGOized. You know. So, you know, that has also now been sanitized and, you know, completely taken away. I was shooting with Sudhanva Deshpande for something and he's always been an important member of Jan Nati Manch.

[00:24:48] And we kind of landed up, you know, having theater conversations and we, of course, landed up speaking about Safdar. And he gifted me a book that he had written called Hala Boy, which is about the life and death of Safdar Ashmi. And I actually went back to reading a book about the theater after very long. I mean, you know, maybe back in the day, Grotowski and a couple of others. But it was really nice to kind of go back into that subject matter.

[00:25:14] And what I want is for you to, you know, maybe recommend some books that you, you know, people should read with regards to theater. Indian Acting Method by Prasanna, I really liked it because I think that it's a very helpful book or a guide for and very easy to understand for actors to practice. So, Indian Method Acting by Prasanna.

[00:25:41] I think it's very good for actors because, you know, I feel that making it too difficult, you know, actors don't read because they find standards loves very difficult and also not very… They don't seem to think about it in the new age of generation. So, I think that is a very good handy book for actors. Post-independence, you know, all the names that all keep coming up, Habib Tanvir, that entire generation of theater makers is very well documented. Okay. Okay.

[00:26:11] Once the situation, and it was much simpler times in those days, much simpler, less of them, not so complex situation that they were working in. Okay. And a lot of funding for that kind of documentation because at that point of time, the state believed these things were important, etc. So, there used to be festivals or that kind of thing. And they also ruled the roost for a long time. My generation of theater makers found it very difficult to break into festivals for a long, long time. Because of the things that existed. Invite Radhamthiam. Yes.

[00:26:40] Nobody can fault you on that. Invite, you know, Habib Tanvir. For heaven's sake, make space for new people, right? Okay. Now, this also... No, no, it's a terrible... Yeah. It was really a problem, right? Festival of India or St. Folk performers, we don't want urban India to be talked about. You know, our strength is our... So, what happens to urban theater people of a particular generation? So, we became virtually invisible. And there is no serious documentation beyond this period. It's a problem.

[00:27:09] So, that's why when we do books where we decided, no, we can't wait for people to do it. So, Scenes We Made is an oral history of experimental theater in Bombay. And I think all theater people should read it. Scenes We Made. Yeah. Scenes We Made. Shanta Gopi has read it, right? I think there have also been theater biographies or autobiographies written by people. Right. So, these are our sources, really. You know, these are our sources. There's nothing where...

[00:27:37] And I often have friends who come from abroad theater practitioners who say that, suppose I want to read about modern Indian theater, where do I go? Yeah, exactly. And really, we are at a loss. I don't know. It's a completely... We're going to give them an academic work to read. And nobody's going to read an academic work. So, one of my big projects is to keep archive. I've got a huge archive now. Yes, yes. Personal archive of all kinds of things. You know, I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Because it has to be given to somebody. And if anybody is listening, you know, has an idea, please let me know.

[00:28:06] Because, you know, I feel terribly responsible for it. And it better be handed over to, you know, into good hands. You know, I'm almost jealous because Sunil's personal collection that he's collected over the years must be quite a stunning collection. And I hope that, you know, this serves as a little bit of a wake-up call for us to maybe take a little bit more initiative to document stuff that's being done in the theatre.

[00:28:31] I mean, we may have missed out on quite a few decades, but it's never too late to start. So, I hope someone listening is inspired enough to start thinking along these lines. Moving on, and speaking of, you know, creating some sort of legacy, both of you have these initiatives where you have kind of created your own spaces to help young thespians create

[00:28:59] and, you know, curate and build their own performances. Can you talk a little bit about those spaces that you've made? Uspar actually was a step further that we found that, you know, we believe that the critical moment of creating a theatre piece is the development phase, you know, where you really are in the first moments and you really are grappling with the idea with a writer, co-writer or a musician

[00:29:25] or a movement person, you know, depending on what kind of theatre practice you do with actors. And the kind of money that a young practitioner has to pay to get a small room, 700 rupees an hour, 800 rupees an hour, does not, is not conducive to failure. You can't develop something unless you can, you feel, you know, confident that if it fails, it doesn't matter. I can always try again.

[00:29:52] At 800 rupees an hour, you can't, you can't have that kind of thought, right? You don't have the freedom and the liberty. And so I think it's impacting the work that we see. It's not thoughtful enough. People don't take risks enough because of this. So we said, let's create a space where people can immerse themselves, develop something without the pressure of time and money. And that's basically the mandate for Uspar. The thought that as a theatre actor, I need space for my own rehearsal, you know, Riaz. Yes.

[00:30:22] And again, to help fellow theatre artists to have a space where they can come, where we can curate some programme, you know, there are many performances which I really don't get time to watch. I cannot go to Kolhapur or Pune and watch those performances. I invite those performances there and I also watch it and my villagers also watch it. Okay, moving on to our last segment of this episode and my personal favourite, The Slow

[00:30:47] Burn, our very own version of a rapid fire, which is not rapid at all. Hits. So my first question, of course, for both of you is, what is the last play that you watched and loved? And Sonil, I hope it will be recent and not as far back as the 70s. I saw a Marathi play, Tuhji Aukat Ka Hai. I really like that play. Same, yeah. Right. And what about the last film that you have watched and loved?

[00:31:15] I can't even remember the last film I saw. I don't really watch films. You're a true theatre person. Yeah. Okay. I liked all we imagine is light. Oh, you saw that? Yeah. In theatres. I still have played. Okay, now I know that both of you have actually, you know, had the chance to perform at all over the country and even all over the world. I mean, both of you have performed at the Globe in London.

[00:31:40] And given the vast experience you've had of performing all over the world, I'm very curious to know what is the best venue you have performed at? Well, I think the Globe was a very beautiful experience, but then there are equally beautiful experiences in other spaces. Globe was very beautiful because the way it's built. Oh, yes. And, you know, 2000 people watching and, you know, open to the air and quite, quite very difficult to fail at the Globe. Very difficult to fail? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:08] Because the audience comes in with so much empathy and to enjoy and to like what they're going to watch. When we first went there for the festival, it was a large numbers of people who were Indians. Right. Gujarati Indians. Right. Because our play was in Gujarati. The second season we did there, we did a regular run. So then it was a mixed audience, mainly white. And they, obviously there's no surtitles, subtitles. There's a synopsis, scene synopsis that is up there. Right. But no dialogue by dialogue. And they were responding. Oh, yeah.

[00:32:35] Actually, we performed in Chile in a bullfighting arena. Wow. It was like 5,000. This was PR Behrupia only? Yeah, PR Behrupia. And about two like big screens and we had these label mics and all. But it was like, I never imagined that I'm like just five feet tall. So I don't know whether people were able to see me or not. But I enjoyed, you know.

[00:32:59] I really, I never imagined that, you know, I will feel, I will be performing in an arena theater of that scale. And there I'm assuming it was not an Indian audience. No, no, not at all. It was, it was, they had Spanish subtitles. Okay. And songs were also, were given some. But they were responding to the energy of the. Yeah, the subtitling was very good. Okay, here's one which is not controversial at all. Who's your favorite performer on stage?

[00:33:27] I would say that when you say that, the first name that comes to my mind is Mukta Barwe. Mukta is amazing. She says wonderful to watch. No, no. You can't say the same. I like Jyoti Dogra. Ah, so that's one person that you would not miss out. See, generational gap. And our final question, which is to help our audience that's listening in. A little bit of advice from both of you.

[00:33:53] Gitanjali, from you to an aspiring young middle class actor who's starting off or wanting to start off. And Sunil, from you to someone who's an aspiring theater director. I think if anybody wants to become an actor, I feel that if you train yourself, not necessarily in a formal school, but you have to learn a lot and you have to see theater a lot and

[00:34:20] you have to again ask question, why, why, why do I want to do theater? Is it that important for me? Right. Because it is a very difficult thing to be an actor. Right. And you know, you get frustrated very quickly because nobody casts me or you know, I don't, I'm not getting good roles. It's very easy to get frustrated. So if you know, if you clearly know why I'm doing this, then there are very less chances

[00:34:49] of getting frustrated and you will continue your work and your work is very important. Actually, I believe that like in the, in some countries you have the compulsory draft, you know, where you spend two years in the army. I think all young people should work in theater production for two years. Yes, absolutely. Production. Don't let them come on stage. No, no, no, no, no, no, no acting. Production. Production. You become so innovative. You become so smart at getting things done and handling. I'm telling you, it's a training for life.

[00:35:20] Make 10 rupees do the work or 20 rupees. You know, you know, deal with people, deal with, you know, organizational things, find Jugaard, make things happen. I agree, I'm always short-staffed. I agree. So, yeah. In our country, you know, directors, you know, they're cut. And scene. And cut.

[00:35:47] You know, being a good organizer is not being a good director. Being, you know, holding your authority in a room is not, that's one part. Yes, you have to be good at all that. But I think being a director is really being interested in everything. And I will echo to a large extent what Geetanjali has said. That theater is about life, yeah. So you have to be interested in everything in life. You need to study a lot.

[00:36:16] You need to see the connections between things. That is what will make your work interesting. That when you are able to give an audience a new insight into an everyday situation. And, you know, you're going to be finding a unique story. It's not going to happen always, right? But it's how you tell the story. What do you see in the story? So that requires a lot of study, a lot of thinking. And, of course, the craft is very, very, very critical.

[00:36:39] You know, any carpenter knows that unless, you know, he knows to work the saw and the chisel, you're not going to make a table. Why do theater directors feel that they can direct a play without knowing the basic tools, right? So it's study, it's the mind, it's the craft, and it's an interest in people. It's an interest in life. And that's really critical for that. If you don't have that, forget. A tremendous amount of physical stamina and mental stamina goes into direction.

[00:37:07] And that was episode 2 of Unscripted with Akash Kurana, an Adyam podcast produced by M&M Talkies. I am very grateful to both our guests for indulging us in such a wonderful and insightful conversation. And like me, I hope that the people listening in, you know, maybe just got a little bit of a deeper sense of understanding of the role of theater beyond just entertainment. Thank you for tuning in and listening.

[00:37:36] And until next time, keep the drama alive.