Prithvi@Dubai thrills audience

On Sunday, the first Prithvi Theatre festival to be held outside India came to an end at Ductac, Mall of the Emirates.

Bollywood veterans Shabana Azmi and her writer husband Javed Akhtar closed the five-day event with their stage production Kaifi Aur Main, based on the writings of Azmi’s father, legendary poet and lyricist Kaifi Azmi, and on excerpts from her actress mother Shaukat’s book, Yaad Ki Rehguzar. Azmi and Akhtar gave a light-hearted yet thoughtful glimpse into the romantic and revolutionary life of the senior Azmis in the form of letters exchanged between the two and snippets from their lives. The story moved from their amorous courtship to his struggle with depression due to paralysis to commentary on the war of Indian Independence to the existing socio-political scene at the time. Melodious renditions of Kaifi’s songs and ghazals were presented by singer Jaswinder Singh — from well-known film versions such as Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam (Kaagaz Ke Phool), Jhuki jhuki si nazar (Arth) and Kar chale hum fida jaan-o-tan saathiyon (Haqeeqat) and Heer (Heer Ranjha) to Itna to zindagi mein kisiki khalal pade and his women empowering Aurat.

“It was the third or the fourth death anniversary of Kaifi Sahab. Earlier years, we had had music programmes and poetry sittings but that year there were requests to do something different,” said Akhtar. “Shaukat’s book had just released so I suggested we read excerpts from there and build around it with information available on Kaifi from interviews and his works. Plus, intersperse his wonderful nazms (songs) and shayari (poetry) on topics ranging from romance to social unrest to war, with the readings. Kaifi was a prolific writer and many of his songs were written for films so we could easily pick to carry the theme forward. [The biggest challenge] however, was that it had to be all done in three days and because I had suggested it fell on me to create it. In fact, our first full reading was at the show! We had managed to put it together just the evening before. You see sometimes you may start with nothing, but then strike gold. This was one of those times”.

Prithvi@Dubai had opened last Wednesday with another legendary Bollywood pair Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah. The couple played playwright George Bernard Shaw and theatre actress Stella Campbell in the two-hour Dear Liar that took you through their relationship — again through letters — over 40 years, with a single dress change.

“The beauty lies in [the fact that the writer specifies] that the actors should make no attempt to physically resemble the characters. What he meant was we should not go in to the nitty gritty of how his eyebrows were or how her hair was — that’s irrelevant. Secondly, that would take you into the realm of realism,” Shah had told tabloid! regarding Dear Liar. “The play covers a span of 40 years and the two actors would be doing nothing but changing [clothes] and make up every five minutes if that was the case. It is a tremendous challenge to age over 40 years without the aid of makeup.”

At the same time, Shah believes this helps keep the actors at a remove from the parts they are playing.

“I think it’s a farce when you see a play where there’s a tap with running water or a kettle that actually boils. It never creates the illusion you are trying to create. The audience never forgets you are in a theatre. So it’s futile to actually convince them that what you are seeing is actually happening. This is the approach I take in all our plays where one cuts out the formality between the actor and the audience,” explained the actor who has played legendary figures from Einstein to Mirza Ghalib.

Needless to say both plays were sold out and received standing ovations.

While Shah excelled in his portrayal of Shaw (Shah/Shaw — he even jokes about it on stage), his wife the recently released Kapoor & Sons actress was equally good, witty remark for witty remark. Azmi teared up at the end of her rendition of Shaukat’s writings, showing how close to heart the whole production was to her, even after a decade that the show premiered.

Nothing Like Lear, directed by Rajat Kapoor, cast Vinay Pathak in a solitary — but brilliant performance — as a clown. Kapoor adapts Shakespeare’s King Lear into a modern day father’s anguished story.

For a one-man show, Pathak managed to hold the attention of a largely restless crowd, with a healthy dose of audience engagement that was refreshing to see in Indian theatre.

Pathak broke the fourth wall in so many ways and created an intimate, borderline invasive, dialogue between actor and audience.

“C For Clown was our first attempt to work on something which was completely different and out of the box. At the same time, it had the risk of not making sense to anybody. But it became very successful. After that Rajat decided to dabble into Shakespeare. He did Hamlet, The Clown Prince which took forward the idea of this clown company as they decide to stage a Shakespeare play. Now, a clown company can either completely destroy it,” said Pathak. “Yet it would have an uncanny meaning and substance to it as well — which Shakespeare very cleverly weaved into all his plays because there’s always a fool or a clown in them. In C For Clown, one of the clowns from this company does an interpretation of King Lear. This 15-20 minutes piece was quite refreshing and much appreciated. Rajat brought this idea to me and Atul [Kumar] and we got into a workshop for a couple of months and tried to see if we can turn into a full length play. Nothing Like Lear is a result of that. Now we’ve performed the 100th show at Prithvi@Dubai”.

A tragic-comedy, the play also manages to surprise — while one moment you’re being entertained, the next moment you might be terrified or deeply sad — and you’ll never anticipate the dark places this otherwise jovial play goes to. Full points to Pathak for a masterful performance.

Two other plays — Rajit Kapur directed Tennessee William classic The Glass Menagerie and Sonali Kulkarni starrer White Lily and The Night Rider — were also staged as part of the five-day festival.