It is more glamorous to be on stage than behind it. So then why would a young girl choose to direct rather than act? Clearly there is more to the lure of theatre than the arclights and makeup. Two young women in the city have chosen to chart their own course in this arena, beginning with acting but moving to direction. They both have different, independent perspectives on how theatre works best.
Deepti Girotra is a young, fun-loving Punjabi. Despite being a post-graduate in Clinical Psychology with a steady occupation, Deepti acts in plays but her heart is set on directing plays.
So what got her into theatre? “God, destiny and my teachers — in that order. I did my schooling in Nasr, which has its own Dramatics Society. That’s where the bug bit me initially. College was St. Francis which also allows you to breathe and indulge your non-academic side. After that, it was just watching plays, until my friends egged me on to acting; then I went knocking on Sutradhar’s door. I started with a theatre workshop by Vinay Varma and that’s how this part of the journey started.”
For the record, Deepti has co-directed Siyaah Haashiye and Biryani aur Haleem, both of which received good reviews from a cross section of audience.
While Deepti works with props and costumes to aid actors on stage, Sowmya Ram’s focus is children. Her forte lies in making children perform in plays with minimal or no props; children play the drums and dappu themselves and don costumes which don’t hide their identity. “The idea of introducing children to plays is the need to communicate well. While engaging them in production it teaches them team work, brings out their creativity and make them express well. I have directed Pied Piper and a couple of other plays with children. Street plays that create awareness are a good medium to introduce children to,” says Sowmya. With some experience in acting, Sowmya believes dramatics can also be used for children with special needs.“Teaching kids with special needs is important and this can be one medium,” she adds.
How difficult was it to switch shoes from acting to direction? Deepti says, “Not very, though both come with their own complications and their own quota of fun. Both involve being part of a shared vision — when you direct, you try to share your vision with the team and when one acts, then one tries to understand and translate the vision of the director. I’d say both are equally challenging.”
And what is the most difficult part of directing? Deepti says it is the idea of letting go and not trying to control everything and everyone once the script becomes a shared vision. Getting an actor to replicate what you do would be relatively easy. Making actors see what the director sees and giving them the freedom to chart their own path to the same vision is more challenging.
Looking for maturity
While we claim that we love theatre there are only a few takers of tickets for plays staged in the city. Another grouse is that the city lacks good theatre, barring a few exceptions. So, everyone waits with bated breath for theatre fests that stage plays from production houses from Mumbai. Some feel our local groups lack content and others feel what’s on offer isn’t theatre at all. Theatre lover and founder principal of Abhyasa school, Vinayak Kaletla, categorises theatre groups into two. “One group adapts literary works of masters in English, Urdu or Hindi and the other category confuses hobby with passion. The second group dishes out childish humour and makes me wonder how the audience laughs with them.”
This culture he thinks has just picked up because it’ s cool to watch theatre than go watch a film. “Some of the humour they dish out is so childish - I even wonder how the audience laughs.” He feels this ‘cool quotient’ encourages mediocrity. Vinayak adds, “I wish someone revives Hyderabadi plays like Adrak ke panje, which I watched in my growing years. Telugu theatre and Urdu theatre also needs to be revived. Corporates can help do that.” Vinayak says parents need to encourage children to participate and watch plays.
