Rajat Kapoor is a well-known director, actor and writer working in theatre and in film. His interest in parallel cinema at an early age earned him several accolades including three National Awards, first for a 26-minute non-feature documentary titled Tarana, then for his short, Hypnothesis, and lastly for Raghu Romeo. The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) graduate has acted in movies such as Dil Chahta Hai, Monsoon Wedding, Corporate, Bheja Fry, Drishyam and now will be seen in Kapoor & Sons. His film Ankhon Dekhi earned him good reviews.
Rajat's theatre has been drawn towards clowning. The clown takes centrestage in plays like C FOR CLOWN, HAMLET THE CLOWN PRINCE, NOTHING LIKE LEAR and now for his latest adaptation of another of the Bard's plays - AS YOU LIKE IT, which will premiere this weekend at the second edition of Aadyam, a theatre initiatve by the Aditya Birla Group. As we speak, he tells us his fascination for clowns, and of his approach towards theatre.
By Nishtha Juneja
Nishtha Juneja (NJ): Why did you choose AS YOU LIKE IT? What are some of the aspects that you had kept in mind while adapting this 'pastoral comedy?' Rajat Kapoor (RK): AS YOU LIKE IT has long been on my list- not as a play to do, but definitely as one of the exciting prospects. I think what excited me the most about this text was that Rosalind goes to a forest and pretends to be a man- Ganymede- and when she meets her lover (Orlando), she tells him she is a boy (in disguise as Ganymede), and he should pretend that she is in fact a girl (Rosalind) so that she can counsel him and cure him of being in love. Now here is a girl playing a boy who is again pretending to be a girl. This I thought was something that could be dynamite. And then we decided to complicate this further by asking a male actor to play Rosalind. So in effect now it's a boy pretending to be a girl pretending to be a boy - oh my God... even I am confused! :)
NJ: The play has one of Shakespeare's most memorable speeches: "All the world's a stage..." How have you approached it? RK: You are right- that is one of the most famous passages from Shakespeare. Our play in fact starts with that speech. I am not going to tell you any more- you have to come and watch it.
NJ: You seem to be taken with the theatrical possibilities of clowning and the circus. Why? RK: One does not quite know why one does things that one does. You do it because it fascinates you- because it calls out to you. So the clowns have been calling out to me - this is my fifth production with clowns- after C FOR CLOWN, HAMLET: THE CLOWN PRINCE, NOTHING LIKE LEAR and WHAT'S DONE IS DONE (Macbeth). Over the years, having worked with clowns, a few things have become apparent to me. The clowns, for one, give you the essential being, with primal feelings. They are not burdened by social baggage, cast or religion. They are just clowns. So when a clown is happy, the closest thing you can feel is joy, if you get what I mean. It is pure emotion there.
Also, I have realised that the clowns have become a metaphor for performers- any performer. So, all the anxieties and pressure or stress of being a performer, of putting up a show, comes through the clowns.
NJ: You direct films too. Apart from the technicalities unique to theatre and film, is there any fundamental difference in your approach as a director working across these two mediums? RK: In theatre, one works through actors, but in film, through light that is captured in the camera- and the actor plays a very small part in that scheme. But more than anything else, the process for me is entirely different. For a film, it is the script first which is developed in isolation over many months. The original idea is developed into a story and events and the basic emotional graph is already there. Of course then one waits for money- and finally in production, one is able to build upon the original foundation through lights and sound and editing and all the other means available. Eventually, the film might deviate from what you wrote, but the structure does not change too much. It is a building that comes up on the foundation that you had laid already and have tried to somehow achieve that original vision.
However, when I am doing a play, the process is entirely different. I start with almost no idea and we get to work with actors. And every day we discover something, some little thing about the play and how we want to evolve that. There is absolutely no script as the script gets written as we go along. It is truly a collaborative effort and what you arrive at in the end is as much a surprise to us as it is to the audience. When we start the journey we have no idea where we are going to reach, much less know of how we'll reach there.
NJ: What does a well-directed theatre production mean to you? RK: I look for the form when I am watching a play. I want to be mesmerised, to be transformed, transported. Unfortunately very few theatre artistes in this country have that effect. The last of the greats are Ratan Thiyam and Habib Sahab, who is no more.
NJ: What are your strongest traits as a director? RK: I believe they are conviction and patience.
I DON'T LIKE IT. AS YOU LIKE IT will be staged on 5th March, Saturday, 7:30pm and 6th March, Sunday, 4pm & 7:30 pm at Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA. It will also play on 25th March, Friday, 7:30 pm and 26th March, Saturday, 4 & 7:30 pm at St. Andrews, Bandra.
*Nishtha Juneja likes to act and write about theatre. Nishtha Juneja is passionate about dance and food and has completed a post-graduate diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute for Communication (XIC).
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