I sat down with Ila Arun and her team ahead of their 3rd Ibsen Festival in Mumbai. They were all seated on the floor eating lunch when I entered...
By Gaurangi Dang
Gaurangi Dang (GD): This is a very interesting mix of people that you have in your team. How did you all end up working together?
Ila Arun (IA): See, it's been three years since the festival began but Surnai (my company) has been around for thirty years. Some of us like K.K. Raina, Vijay Kashyap, Anjula Bedi, Ravi Jhankal, have been doing theatre in our own modest manner for a long period of time. At this point this is a repertory of thirty to thirty-five people, and all of them feel like family to me. All of these people are wonderfully trained in their respective fields. We have about five to six people that have trained at the NSD (National School of Drama). There's K.K. who is so highly regarded in his field, along with actors from Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, as well as Kashmir. It's really quite wonderful to have them all together under one roof.
GD: Tell us more about the festival this year. This is the third year of the festival and you have two new plays opening this season.
IA: As you know the Ibsen festival in Mumbai is my brainchild. Except for THE DOLL'S HOUSE, all the other three plays have been translated and adapted by me. I feel that whatever Ibsen did all the way back in the 19th century is still very relevant today. We're very happy to be premiering two new plays this season - A DOLL'S HOUSE, which has been directed by Pushan (Kripalani), and GHOSTS, which has been directed by K.K. Raina and adapted by me as PICHA KARTI PARCHAIYAN. This season we're opening in a chronological order with A DOLL'S HOUSE, which was Ibsen's first play and then following it with GHOSTS, which was his second, and subsequently LADY FROM THE SEA (adapted as MAREECHIKA), which is his third.
GD: Tell us a little about your process of adapting Ibsen in the Indian context. This year you've chosen to adapt Ibsen's GHOSTS. What lead you to this choice?
IA: It all started when I was doing LADY FROM THE SEA. Nissar (Allana) and I had been discussing my role in one of the previous editions of the festival in Delhi, and I was given the choice of adapting one of Ibsen's plays. Back then in 2010, I wasn't that well versed with Ibsen or any of his plays, so my first task was to read all his work and understand the context the writer was coming from. That year the theme of the festival was 'Ibsen in Tradition'. I felt that LADY FROM THE SEA was the appropriate choice. This was the beginning of the Ibsen journey for me.
Last year at the festival in Mumbai, we had Kåre Conradi come in from Norway, and perform PEER GYNT. He was fabulous as always and at one of the discussions after the show, it was he who suggested that we work together on an adaptation of Ibsen's GHOSTS. Unfortunately, the collaboration could not work out, but the idea of adapting the play stuck.
'Ghosts' in Ibsen's context, are the shadows of the past familial ghosts that continue to haunt the generations to follow. The Havelis of Rajasthan are surrounded by such myths. These are the stories that I grew up on. So I honestly felt, that the royal castles of Rajasthan and its inhabitants best captured the essence of the text. It gave me a great canvas upon which I could paint Ibsen's world. The story has a lot to with the burdens that its characters carry by virtue of their birth, and the idea of history repeating itself in this familial context.
When we were doing PEER GYNT (PEER GHANI), I was really excited about setting it in Kashmir for I felt that it best captured the confused state of mind of Peer Gynt's character. I think that's half the trick; to find a great setting because everything falls into place. After that the rhyme scheme fell into place and I felt that the poetry helped capture, in this case, the underlying layers of the text. The space is what adds context to text, and it's the setting that decides how accessible the play is to an audience.
GD: What are the difficulties you faced while trying to put the productions together?
IA: The team is very strong, so everybody pulls his or her own weight without having to be pushed around. The Norwegian Embassy is very supportive, but this year the grant has been drastically cut, but we keep at it because this is what we all love. This way we're involved at every level of the play, from the costumes to music to backstage. Everybody is extremely dedicated and very supportive.
*Gaurangi Dang is an English Literature graduate from the University of Delhi and a student of The Drama School (DSM), Mumbai. She likes to tell stories :)
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