Seven young directors take the stage with a new script

MUMBAI: In a twist to the bard’s observation that all the world’s a stage, seven young directors have over the past few months made the stage their world.
They are facing the teething rigours for the first time. There are casting woes, cranky actors, production glitches, a paucity of rehearsal space and money matters to mind. But the spotlights in their world only promise to get brighter.“I couldn’t have asked for a better break,’’ says Srivas Naidu, the Delhi boy, who after struggling for four years to get noticed in theatre circles here is now being launched by Company Theatre’s latest experiment, Laboratory Theatre Productions 2002.
Explains Company Theatre’s Atul Kumar, “The idea is to encourage fresh creative talent in theatre.’’ Hundreds of wannabe directors were screened for the experiment at several workshops held over two years. The group wants to break the tradition by which aspiring directors have to assist established directors before they get noticed. “This squashes individual thinking as the aspirants simply begin to clone the style and thoughts of their mentors,’’ Mr Kumar explains.
Company Theatre provided an empty stage to the seven directors. “They chose their scripts, their actors, sets... and are free to make their mistakes and learn from them,’’ Mr Kumar adds. The resulting productions promise to enthrall theatre enthusiasts early in August, with several shows being planned across the city. Mr Naidu, for instance, has set his heart on writer Yogesh Kumar’s ‘Peggy Karamer ki Ruhani Yatra’. The play is a series of nine monologues about Peggy, an American who comes to India to seek spiritual solace but is brutally raped.
Says Naidu: “It’s one simple truth told in nine different versions,’’ says Naidu. For Raj Jagadishan, who is directing Edward Albee’s ‘The Zoo Story’, coping with his lead actor walking out on him wasn’t easy. “I was very sure about who would be the two lead characters in the play. And then, one fine day, one of the actors simply tells me he has a better offer and walks out,’’ he recalls. Now, with another actor in place, the rehearsals have begun afresh and should be wrapped up in time for the festival in early August. Rajshekhar Akki, a practising doctor, is experimenting with character portrayal.
In his adaptation of ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’ (from the film by Alain Resnais), Mr Akki has two first-time actors playing the female protagonist. Surviving on a shoe-string budget (which permitted only chai and Parle biscuits during rehearsals), the director hopes to create an effect by which the audience feels that they are witnessing the action from a height.
Hidayat Sami, on the other hand, has chosen an all-woman cast to enact stories written by women, while Pranay Katke is experimenting with improvisation in ‘The Wedding Photographer’. A Sadat Hasan Manto play ‘Do Kaume’ is being directed by Ghanshyam Yadav and ‘Emotions in Life’ by Sanjeev Kumar.