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(This speech by Arun Naik is reproduced verbatim as it was presented at the Damoo Kenkre Memorial and Awards' function that took place on September 28 2013)
I will speak in English in a programme which is otherwise completely in Marathi. That is not for any disregard for Marathi, but because I feel that there are few people here who may not understand Marathi well, whereas all will understand English.
My subject is summed up in the title of a booklet I brought out on the occasion of 'Rang Swarn', the Golden Jubilee Theatre Festival 2003: Director Par Excellence by the Sangeet Natak Akademi.
This was the last time Damoo kaka decided to participate in a national theatre event. He was invited as a veteran director to present a new production. He decided to do a tamasha-based play by Vijay Kuwaleker called GHADEECHE SIMHASAN. A folding throne! It was a political satire.
Unfortunately, he could not make it. He could not find people to act in this folk play of sorts, which was replete with dance and music. But Damoo kaka asked me to edit this booklet, which, as you can see, I did.
I have continuously been a chronicler for Damoo kaka. Though I did not take any formal classroom or workshop training from him, I have been his admirer and student since my school days.
Damoo kaka was a professor at the Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art and he lived in the government colony at Haji Ali on the second floor in building no. 12. We lived on the third floor. We shifted to Kala Nagar in Bandra East in 1967, and he shifted in 1969. So, but for a short break of two years, I have been with him for 46 years. I have written extensively on this personal relationship and I will not speak on that today.
I want to present to you the life and work of a director par excellence as the title of this booklet says. I have interviewed Damoo kaka for the print media, for radio, television and even live on stage. I have assisted him in one play. I have edited a book on him--Damoo Kenkre, Teen Anki Gurukul in which there are over 40 articles by some of us here, including Dr Vijaya Mehta.
Damoo kaka was born in Goa on 5th May 1928, but he went to school and college in Mumbai. It seems that he was interested in theatre since his childhood. His first participation is recorded in the 1947 Sahitya Sangh production of SANGEET MUNICIPALITY, written by Madhavrao Joshi and directed by Vasunana Godbole. He was barely 19 then and was miscast as a doctor; with the result that the critics said he looked porsavda.
Damoo kaka was connected with the Rashtra Seva Dal just like P. L. Deshpande, Jaywant Dalvi and Vijaya Jaywant. They got to do small roles in propaganda plays, mostly of a political nature. This tendency towards political theatre is seen with his early productions for the Goa Hindu Association: Atre's MEE UBHA AAHE, Nagesh Joshi's DEVMANOOS, Varerkar's SATTECHE GULAM and HAACH MULACHA BAAP. And then it seems Damoo kaka turned towards humour with Atre's SASHTANG NAMASKAR. But he also encountered Atre's melodrama UDYACHA SANSAR in those early days. Damoo kaka acted in all these plays and also directed many of them: the first being Atre's MEE UBHA AAHE when he was just turning 20!
After that he did his first original play: Gangadhar Gadgil's RAHASYA ANI TARUNI in 1952. By then he had enrolled as a student in the Sir J. J. School of Art. That gave him an opportunity to do a lot of experimentation in many one-act plays for the inter-collegiate competitions organised by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. This experimentation was not only in acting and direction, but also in stagecraft, especially set designing. Damoo kaka would spend nights in the new theatre building at Chowpatty behind Wilson College, just trying out different sets and lights. He was later joined by other greats such as Vijay Tendulkar, Arvind Deshpande and Vijaya Mehta, who did not belong to the same college, but who got together to do new plays, mostly by Vijay Tendulkar.
This movement by this young theatre group called Lalit Kala Kendra was spearheaded by Damoo kaka who experimented in speech, acting, direction and stagecraft. The full-length plays he directed were Anant Kanekar's RAKSHASACHA JANMA, Vasant Mane's BRAHMACHARI YAKSHA and Tendulkar's GRUHASTA. This was the first play he did for Mumbai Marathi Sahitya Sangh. He then did CHHAPEEL SANSAR by Sang Go Sathe and MANOOS NAWACHE BET by Tendulkar.
Damoo kaka accompanied a group of dancers and musicians to East Germany and later went to England where he was exposed to British theatre and saw such greats as Vivien Leigh, Lawrence Olivier, John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson in classical Shakespearean plays. He also saw avant garde plays, especially Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT in its original English production directed by Beckett himself.
On his return he tried an experiment with TEEN ANKI HAMLET, a new and then modern translation by Nana Jog. I have seen Vijaya bai playing Gertrude alongside Damoo kaka playing Hamlet.
Lalit Kala Kendra was led mostly by Vijaya bai during Damoo kaka's sojourn in England, and she continued with it for many years till she founded Rangayan. Damoo kaka graduated to Sahitya Sangh and did Shirwadkar's DUSRA PESHWA with Daji Bhatawdekar as Bajirao and Usha Kiran as Mastani. In fact Damoo kaka also did the famous roles of Shambhaiyya with Lalita tai as Geeta and Vijaya bai as Usha in TUZE AAHE TUJA PAASHI, and then as Sanjay in SUNDAR MEE HONAR with Vijaya bai as Didiraje and Lalita tai as Menaka.
Damoo kaka continued with his super-experimental one-acts like P. L. Deshpande's VITHALA TO AALA ALA, ANDHARATEEL ARDHA TAS by Vasant Sabnis, VAIRYACHI RATRA by Tendulkar for the Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art which he had joined by then as Professor of advertising design. Here the major experimentation was in set design which now deviated completely from the painted curtains used on the Marathi stage since times immemorial. This is when the levels came in and the box set got established.
Damoo kaka also did lights for many plays in those days--CHAURYAAISHICHA PHERA, SAWAI MADHAVRAO HYANCHA MRUTYU in which Vijaya bai did a fantastic Yashoda. The list is endless.
Damoo kaka's place in Indian theatre would be secure even if he had just done stage design, especially because of his symbolic set of the Marathi TUGLAQ, which was directed by Arvind Deshpande. This set was a complex of steps rising to about eight feet arranged in a manner to resemble the closing claws of a hostile crab to signify the plight of Tuglaq as the play progresses. Arvind Deshpande got the legendary Tapas Sen from Calcutta to light these steps.
In 1968 Damoo kaka did two noteworthy plays. First, VAJE PAULA AAPULE in which he played the character Venkat- the perpetually drunk lawyer friend. Daji Bhatawdekar told me that he would watch spellbound and forget his own lines. That was Damoo kaka's best role. When asked how he did it Damoo kaka would say that he observed a doctor friend getting slowly drunk in a party and the mild levels of intoxication that seemed to permeate the ambience. So much for drunken doctors and drunken lawyers. In fact Damoo kaka would hardy remember his own lines.
The second noteworthy play was Keshav Kelkar's adaptation of 'The Fourposter' where Lalita tai as the only other character would prompt Damoo kaka on stage throughout the play. But the play was not noteworthy only for that reason. Damoo kaka would say 'arey' every time he forgot his lines. In a remake of ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, directed by Vijay Kenkre, the other actors counted these 'areys' and even betted on them.
This kind of work went on and on. I have much more to say but there is no time today. I will just mention some more important plays: Shree Na Pendse's ASA ZALA ANI UJADALA, Dalvi's SABHYA GRIHASTA HO, Shirwadkar's VIDOOSHAK, Kanetkar's AKHERCHA SAWAL with Vijaya bai and Toradmal, Kanetkar's SURYACHI PILEY, P. L. Deshpande's AMMALDAR, Dalvi's SPARSHA.
Damoo kaka even did the set for my OTHELLO directed by Vijay Kenkre.
As I said the list is endless.
The Oxford University Press has published its Companion to Indian Theatre in which I have written entries for P. L. Deshpande, Jabbar Patel and for Damoo kaka.
Thank you.
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