 | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | INDIAN TWIST: Padamsee's Macbeth will have a tantric ring | | Weddings, gossip, love, adultery and lots of sex; no wonder we Indians love Shakespeare so much. It's so close to our lives. Shakespeare's writings ring true in all Indian languages and with the timelessness that pervades his plays, it would seem they have been specifically written with India in mind. Gareth Amstrong, best known for his performances all over the world as Shylock, remarked while in India: "It's really strange and very unnerving, everyone in the audience seems to know the play by heart and all the dialogues, something unheard of even in England, the birth place of Shakespeare." No one told him that Indians learn Shakespeare's plays byheart as part of school curriculum. Imogen Butler Cole agrees that most of Shakespeare's plays are best suited for India and the Indian Society. Cole's adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing premiered in Mumbai last month. An actor and director from the Royal Academy for Dramatic Arts, UK, she is a self-confessed Shakespeare-wali, so much so that she even got her name from Shakespeare's Cymbeline. "I chose this play because it could be transferred to a modern setting in India without losing credibility, whereas modernisations in the UK tend to suffer with inconsistencies." Shakespeare lends himself superbly to adaptations unlike many other European playwrights. In February, a production of Hamlet by Pravah Theatre Laboratory, directed by Neeraj Kabi, travelled to Bangalore. Yakshagana dancers acted out the play within the play, to accompanying Dhrupad music. Gertrude wore an odhni (shawl) lined in red and sindoor in her maang (parting of the hair). And, her dialogues were in pure Hindi, translated by none other than Harivansh Rai Bachchan. The packed house reacted with surprise and awe, a reaction that Kabi is by now familiar with, having performed in Mumbai and Delhi at the National School of Drama festival. For Kabi, Hamlet was only the beginning, for he plans to do Macbeth in 2007 and a series of one-man shows based on several other Shakespearean plays. | | INTERVIEW | TIM SUPPLE | | | "Shakespeare was never so energetic"
Assistant Editor Aasheesh Sharma spoke to A Midsummer Night's Dream director Tim Supple about his first multi-lingual production. Excerpts: Q. How is your adaptation of Shakespeare different?
A. "That's the way Shakespeare is done," is an old English disease. I don't know if Shakespeare has been performed with so much energy before. These actors have a connection with physical ways of acting that go back one to two thousand years. Their acting is more stylised, more choreographed. Archana, who plays Titania, is a contemporary dancer. The boys from the Kathputli colony are highly skilled acrobats. In England, we struggle to bring this kind of energy to the stage because the actors don't have the physical skills. Q. Why did you put together such an eclectic cast?
A. I didn't want to work just with English-speaking Indian actors. Why come thousands of miles to work with European-style Indian actors? Roysten Abel told me about trapeze artists in Delhi's Kathputli colony. We don't have forms like Kalaripayuttu in Europe. The only European form close to this is the Italian Commedia dell'arte, a form of improvisational theatre which began in the 16th Century and was popular until the 18th Century. I use it in my rehearsals. Q. Shakespeare's characters don't always turn out to be what they appear.
A. It is like a riddle working on Shakespeare. It is like a code. If you open your eyes to it, it is wonderful. Nothing is as it seems in Shakespeare. Q. Do you perceive this play as more decadent and physical than other Shakespeare works?
A. It is certainly more physical as it is directly about sexuality in the forest, in the mud, in the earth, under the moon. It is about having sex with the wrong person or wanting to. It is about killing and being killed. I don't really think he is a decadent writer though. The decadent writers came after Shakespeare. | | Regional language adaptations of Shakespeare continue in Malayalam (Othello done in Kathakai form) and in Manipuri (Macbeth performed on water). The year 2006, however, has seen Shakespeare season unfold with the India tour of Measure for Measure by Compliciti, UK. New productions waiting in the wings are A Midsummer Night's Dream by British director Tim Supple (see box). It will premier in April with an all-India tour, before travelling to Sri Lanka and the UK. Supple is best known in India for co-writing and directing Midnight's Children and Haroon and the Sea of Stories with Salman Rushdie for stage. Supple's present magnum opus is the work of extended research. Auditions were held across India and Sri Lanka last year and actors were selected after several workshops. The cast and crew camped at Veenapani Chawla's Adishakti theatre workshop at Pondicherry for intensive rehearsals. Featuring the cream of India's acting fraternity as well as artists from classical and folk art forms, Supple's emphasis is on ensuring that the play finds its own rhythm and not end up as a dreaded "khichdi", or worse, as a festival of India showcase. As to why he chose India for this experiment, Supple says,"simply because I feel that it will be illuminated by India; that the great and rich variety of performers, traditions and approaches will bring it to life in a way that excites me and that I have rarely seen and always yearned for." With Supple's production, Indian theatre experiences another first; actors and crew are being paid on par with artists abroad for their time, for rehearsals and for their dates-something unheard of in our theatre circuits.
| | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | CASTING DIVERSITY: Rehearsing A Midsummer Night's Dream | | Another mega production is Alyque Padamsee's Macbeth, (he's done Othello with Kabir Bedi in the past) which also opens in April in Mumbai. If Supple has Kalari performers and Manipuri dancers in his play, Padamsee sees tantrik motifs ruling the stage in his Macbeth. "The witches in Macbeth have always represented a tantrik element to me," he says. After these acts have ruled the stage, this might just be the right time to see Saif Ali Khan as a north Indian Iago in Vishal Bharadwaj's adaptation of Othello. Ben Jonson wrote about Shakespeare 400 years ago, "He was not of an age, but for all time". Of all nations too, one may add. Index
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