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How Promising is the Future of Theatre in Mumbai?
A brief report on the panel discussion at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2014




Khushali Fadia and Shristi Raj



The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2014 hosted the panel discussion titled 'The Future of Theatre' in collaboration with Avid Acceleration on February 5, 2014. Conceptualised and moderated by playwright-director Ramu Ramanathan, the panel featured prominent theatre practitioners such as Quasar Thakore Padmsee, Jehan Manekshaw, Sanjay Goradia, Purva Naresh, Shaili Sathyu and theatre observer and programmer Deepa Gahlot. Ramu Ramanathan opened the discussion by throwing light on how theatre has usually been a miniscule part of literature and art related festivals and of how the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival was being proactive by showing 62 plays over the course of its festival this year.


Sanjay Goradia, a well-known Gujarati theatre practitioner and a heavyweight producer in the Gujarati theatre industry spoke first. Sanjay Goradia said that the bhayanak world of television will be the death of theatre. He went on to enumerate the economic aspects of professional, travelling theatre which include costumes, sets, labour, transport and even the changing rates in diesel. He spoke of how staging plays was getting increasingly difficult. Jehan Manekshaw approached the problem of economics rather differently- he viewed theatre from an entrepreneur's perspective and said that it is more important to build an infrastructure and provide artists with the skill sets necessary for them to continue doing what they like and what they are good at. Jehan Manekshaw said we don't have a culture of creating producers who could create opportunities for artists to create their art.

Artists face myriad problems doing theatre in Mumbai and one has to find ways to resolve these problems. Quasar Padamsee added to this later, pointing out the fresh perspectives that young people bring as well as their fearlessness when it comes to dealing with new approaches to making theatre and finding an audience.

The idea of bringing theatre to the ''masses'', as Shaili Sathyu referred to it, sprung from the horizontal versus vertical debate, wherein the 'horizontal' referred to plays that appealed to large audiences while the 'vertical' referred to plays which attract only a limited set of people. Sathyu was of the opinion that the definition of 'masses' changes from practitioner to practitioner; and that, in actuality, theatre was not about mass movements, but rather about the individual artists knowing what they wanted to say and who they wanted to say it to.

Purva Naresh explained another aspect of catering to the masses when she talked of 'opening up' plays to make them more accessible. She said this in context with her play PRETH which was in the Bundeli dialect and which was not so successful in reaching out to the audience when staged at the NCPA. She said that Deepa Gahlot helped her understand that in order to create a larger group of theatre-goers; plays first needed be constructed in such a way so as to draw audiences and then work on widening their tastes.

Another interesting vein of the discussion was about regional theatres like Gujarati and Hindi. It started when Sanjay Goradia mentioned that plays in Gujarati and Hindi were no longer considered 'cool'. Purva Naresh spoke of a changing urban audience that did not want to watch plays in Hindi. Maneckshaw, Padamsee and Sathyu had different ideas about language theatres. Maneckshaw was of the opinion that even if languages died out, there was no reason why the stories should, as people are always looking for stories to tell through theatre. He stressed that stories in regional languages should not be allowed to die. Sathyu too had a point as she spoke of evolving theatre to adapt to the sensibilities of young, urban audiences without the need to sacrifice the regional languages. In her work with children she said she encourages different language theatres.

Quasar Padamsee, who faced the problem of classifying plays by language during their festival Thespo last year, brought out another aspect of the bi-lingual and tri-lingual plays that are very much part of our local idiom since Indians by and large know at least two to three languages.

Deepa Gahlot in response to Sanjay Goradia's lament about dying audiences for Gujarati plays said that it's also to do with the fact that Gujarati plays do not appeal to younger audiences and follow the slapstick comedy and saas-bahu sagas. But Sanjay Goradia also made the relevant remark that young Gujaratis no longer speak the language and therefore are unable to relate to it. The truth may lie somewhere between these views.

*Khushali Fadia is a third year student from Sophia College's BMM department and has a keen interest in the theatre culture of Mumbai. Srishti Raj is a first year BA student from Sophia College. She is the secretary of the English Literary Society of Sophia College for the year 2014.


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