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Youth theatre or theatre by young people has often been a vigorous topic for discussion both at home and abroad. The city of Mumbai itself has had a long tradition of engaging with youth theatre. In fact many of its stalwarts in the theatre today are a product of inter-collegiate competitions such as the erstwhile COPWUD, IPTA Mumbai’s ICDC and the INT (Indian National Theatre). Yet again many of these well-known personalities have engaged and continue to engage with young people as the inter-collegiate stage is seen as a haven for unlimited experimentation; a stage free from the mercurial constraints of the box-office. Mumbai colleges like Mithibai, Ruia, Khalsa and Jai Hind take great pride in being a part of these competitions. The ambience each year is charged with not only the enthusiasm of these young participants but also by the sheer knowledge that these competitions are the first, crucial step towards a professional stage career. Now it may only seem obvious that given the number of young people inclined towards the theatre and of the serious commitment that they invest in their efforts (be they competitions or low key professional plays), there is good reason to believe that theatre is alive and kicking in our mega metropolis. Unfortunately quite the opposite is true. Run of the mill and unimaginative fare is the staple offering of companies that are only commercially motivated. Even the established old theatre companies, which are not necessarily driven by monetary concerns, have done little in recent times to contribute towards what one can call a dynamic, contemporary and modern Indian theatre. The latter is not merely a local problem. It is equally one of national significance too. The history of modern Indian theatre begins with Tendulkar, Karnad and Sircar- the famous trio and ends with them. So overwhelmed are we by these figures that our understanding of Indian theatre history ends with these names, much like how in the popular consciousness, the history of the Indian nation ends with the independence of the country in 1947. .Apart from some truly brilliant plays (you can count these on your fingers), the general state of the theatre, which includes the productions done by young people thus finds itself in a sort of a rut. And the issue at hand is not of infrastructure or finance alone but is increasingly one of attitude. With this background in mind, Mumbai Theatre Guide chose to speak to two young people who feel strongly about the lack of a vibrant, contemporary theatre. Chaitanya Tamhane and Sudeep Modak belong to that rare breed of young people whose dismissal of the present theatre is not a fashion statement. The two Mithibai college students who are in their last year and are majoring in English Literature have been involved with the theatre since they were children. They have played an active role in the Mithibai drama circle and have recently collaborated with Ramu Ramanathan for the children’s musical MEDHA AND ZHOOMBISH II. Chaitanya Tamhane and Sudeep Modak have co-directed the play and Sudeep also acts in it. The two along with a third friend, Samir Lukka have recently made a documentary film on the issue of plagiarism in Hindi feature films. Here’s their sour take on what ails our theatre today.
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Deepa Punjani
I am told that both of you have had a solid background in terms of watching plays on a regular basis since an early age and that you continue to do so. Can you elaborate a little on how were you first motivated and so forth?
Chaitanya Tamhane: It’s true that the two of us have watched many plays for as long as we can remember. It may seem a cliché but we owe it to the fact that we are Maharashtrains and as practically everybody knows that there is something about Maharashtrains and theatre! As kids it was natural we went along with our families to watch plays. It also happened that we acted in children’s plays. You can say that we simply cultivated a habit.
Sudeep Modak: It’s almost the same experience that Chaitanya has had but I think I specially owe it to my mother who when I was small kept wondering what will be the next mischief I’ll get into. She is a culturally inclined person who likes watching plays and dance performances. Her idea was to keep me occupied. So she used to take me to different places like a dance class. I didn’t care much for these classes till she enrolled me in a workshop. That’s when I discovered the theatre. So I started watching more plays; it was mainly Marathi plays at that time but that’s when I got really interested. My father too likes watching select plays and when he used to see any good play he would push me to watch it. In fact my father also motivated me towards watching select English films, which he felt were really nice.
How old must have you been when you started?
Sudeep Modak: In my case I distinctly remember that I was in class V. The memory is associated with the change in our residence. We had then just shifted to a new place.
Chaitanya Tamhane: I remember doing my first professional play when I was in class III and even prior to that I had already started watching plays. Primarily they were children’s plays in Marathi. My parents were and still are avid theatergoers. Today I may not agree with their tastes however. My folks now think that I have morphed into some kind of a bourgeois critic!
But you must have some good memories of the plays that you saw as children.
Chaitanya Tamhane: Yes why not. I can think of all those ‘magnum opuses’ at auditorium like Dinanath. They were out and out gimmicky plays wherein they used to bring things like robots on stage and create sensory effects. Gods used to come alive and I remember a production in which the actor who was playing the character of the God Vithal stood still for the greater part of the play. He would stand still without blinking and he was the star attraction! Now that’s a gimmick that used to work. I remember a children’s play called DHISHAU DHISHAU in which I acted. There was an Arab in the play trying to sell children!
How did you manage to find time to act with your school routine?
Chaitanya Tamhane: Oh these forays of ours were mainly during the vacations and by the way we used to pay to act in these productions. Can you believe that?
So given your early interest in the theatre, Mithibai college must have seemed the appropriate place to go to.
Sudeep Modak: Yes it was Mithibai or Xavier’s. Mithibai is known for its cultural activities. My father had told me about it. I was keen on Xavier’s but missed out because I felt short of the required percentage.
I am inclined to believe from what I have shared and heard from people in the theatre fraternity that Mithibai is perhaps the best college in Mumbai for students interested in the theatre.
Chaitanya Tamhane: Now that’s the beginning of a complex discussion. I would rather say that there are many talented students across colleges in Mumbai but that the inter-collegiate play fails them. Most of these plays are quite terrible.
Yes in fact you have driven me to the core question of this discussion. The inter-collegiate competition in Mumbai has an illustrious history and I do think it is well past time that we move beyond that history to look at the state of affairs as it actually is. But before we actually move on to this very pertinent question I’d like to ask you about your work with the Mithibai drama circle.
Sudeep Modak: One of the main reasons for both of us joining the college was the Mithibai drama circle. We got involved with it since our first year. It’s largely been inter-collegiate plays but we have also had some experience with Gujarati professional theatre people. For the first two years we had Vipul Mehta as our director. After Vipul Mehta Nishikant Kamath came in. We did produce a couple of good plays and basically enjoyed the process of staging a play. Then there was Yogesh Pagare, one of Mithibai college’s ex-students. He is quite well-known. When Vipul Mehta was in his struggling years he directed Yogesh Pagare in two inter-collegiate plays, which became huge hits.
Chaitanya Tamhane: Both of us were interested in acting then and we thought the drama circle would be the appropriate place to start from. Primarily our experience has been with Vipul Mehta and to some extent with Nishikant Kamath. When we were in our first year we were very intimidated by the inter-collegiate circuit and by Vipul Mehta too as his is a big name as far as inter-college plays are concerned. But we nevertheless enjoyed. There was a lot to learn; we had problems with our acting and quite honestly I don’t think we have improved one bit! But the important thing for us was the development of our sensibility. Over time we felt that most plays that we were doing were no good and that they belonged to the sixties and the seventies.
When did you begin to feel the need to question what you were doing?
Chaitanya Tamhane: It was our third year I think.
Sudeep Modak: I guess that we were simply able to see that what we were doing in our third year was the same that we had been doing since our first year in college.
Chaitanya Tamhane: Actually the realization for me came much earlier. In our first year only I told Sudeep that what we were doing looked like an amateurish children’s play. But we were scared then to question the hype. No doubt we enjoyed performing. This was a play called GAFLA and it actually went on to win awards and each one of us got individual prizes. In the second year we got more skeptical even as we kept winning awards. There was something clearly amiss and the feeling kept growing stronger day by day. The problem in many ways is the inter-collegiate competition itself. It works in a strange manner. If you win you are made to feel like a King and really rather than doing a good turn I feel the inter-collegiate has screwed up many promising careers by making the winner come across as a stellar, infallible theatre person. And that’s not really the case. I don’t mean to pronounce any judgments…
No you’re not. You’re just being realistic, which is good.
Chaitanya Tamhane: You want it on record from us is it? To get us crucified…
(Laughter).
No I am just glad that somebody as young as you is talking. My own experience of inter-collegiate plays in the last couple of years has been largely dissatisfactory.
Chaitanya Tamhane: Frankly speaking the quality of plays in the big inter-collegiate competitions is not only regressive but also offensive. I have quit the circuit because I just feel the plays offend my sensibility and are demeaning our intelligence. That is why even Sudeep has now dropped out of it.
But it must be difficult for you to get along with your radical views…
Chaitanya Tamhane: We have been fighting with the authorities and the professor in-charge but the thing is that it is difficult to change people’s views and the point is who really cares? When the college gets the prize everyone is happy.
Sudeep Modak: In such a scenario, the case is as good as closed even before one can open it.
What do your peers in the drama circle feel about this issue?
Chaitanya Tamhane: There are people who realize…
Sudeep Modak: But they don’t want to take a stand.
Chaitanya Tamhane: Again 90% of the people in the circuit don’t feel the same. They genuinely believe that they are doing good work. And they might be doing good work. Maybe we are wrong!
Do you think that there is a problem with the inter-collegiate model wherein the driving factor is the prize? And because of the state of affairs do you think that students are less likely to truly experiment and take short-cuts with what can be termed as obvious winners- a known script, an accepted convention of acting, etc?
Chaitanya Tamhane: See I must emphasize again that the students are not bad per se. It is the way that they are made to believe and see things. The responsibility primarily lies with the senior people be they the invited directors or the professors. It is they who need to change and envision things differently. Frankly there is tremendous talent in the inter-collegiate circuit but it is the kind of plays that are performed that need to be examined. And really this is not an inter-collegiate problem as much as it is the way our theatre is.
Sudeep Modak: And another thing I’d like to say although it may not be directly relevant to your question is that one should, I feel take risks and move beyond the known parameters.
Chaitanya Tamhane: At least care should be taken to avoid regressive plays and rip-offs of Hollywood and Hindi films. There are so many ‘acclaimed’ inter-collegiate playwrights who are doing this. They feel people won’t know.
But you are not saying that you are against adaptations.
Chaitanya Tamhane: No No…Adaptations are justified as far as they make interesting theatre but straight rip-offs are just not the done thing. A recent, celebrated professional play by a young playwright/director is nothing but a rip-off of the Spanish film, ‘Yu Tu Mama Tambien’ by Alfonso Cuarono. The same person remade a Hollywood film, ‘My Girl’ into an inter-collegiate play. Now the playwright is honoured for such plays and no credit is given to the original work. These aspects are worrying.
On an average how many students take part in the Mithibai drama circle?
Sudeep Modak: At least 30-35 students are there each year. The Mithibai drama circle I think is as old as the college is. Your question about the unappetizing stuff that is dished out on the inter-collegiate stage reminds me of a competition at which we first got to know Ramu Ramanathan. He was there as a judge.
Chaitanya Tamhane: The production, which won the awards had already been performed innumerable times and is basically a copy of the Hindi film ‘Ek Chaddar Maili Si’. It was by no appearances a good production but it still won. In terms of production values, it was all very glamorous but there was nothing that was new or captivating about it. And Ramu when he went to the stage to speak said that this was very much the play that was done when he himself passed out from Mithibai in 1987. He said that back then directors like Mahendra Joshi and Anshulmali Ruparel were able to handle the gimmicks of the same play in a better manner. Besides, he added how can one oversee important Mithibai college productions such as Iqbal Khwaja’s SNAFU and Naushil Mehta’s NAUSHIL MEHTA COMMITS SUICIDE and SSHH…Surely things have to improve and not degenerate. On our part we were simply glad that someone senior like Ramu had finally said it. Ramu became an instant hero for us.
The issue of judges at inter-collegiate competitions also needs to be brought into question. The invited judges are often heroes of daily soaps and why can’t they just say that no production deserves a prize this year as there is nothing that is unusual.
Sudeep Modak: It’s true that we are made to confine ourselves to the judges’ sensibilities.
Chaitanya Tamhane: It’s like a vicious circle. Whom can you blame? The winning students pass out and become directors and the whole charade continues.
Are the students participating in these competitions in touch with the professional theatre?
Chaitanya Tamhane: On yes they are. They are doing what they are because they love it. Most of these students don’t realize the raw deal they are getting.
Sudeep Modak: It was the same with us. In our first year we didn’t know better.
Chaitanya Tamhane: But we insist that please do not go by what we have to say. Come and watch the plays and form your opinion.
I do have my reasons to agree with what you are saying. It’s just not the inter-collegiate scene that is suffering from this kind of a rut that it has got into. The situation is quite the same in our professional theatre too although I am not sure how many people would actually acknowledge it. As far as the inter-collegiate scene is concerned do you think it makes any sense to scrap the competitions and allow students to come up with original work.
Chaitanya Tamhane: I don’t think it’s the competition that is a deterring factor to originality and in any case I think if any steps have to be taken, it has to be at the grassroots’ level.
What kind of changes can be brought in? I am just trying to understand for myself of what can be possibly done?
Sudeep Modak: I think the culture of playmaking, which exists here, is somewhere faulty. To take Ramu’s example. I feel that had we grown with someone of his sensibility then we would be thinking afresh. I am not saying that Ramu is the ultimate playwright or director that one can aspire for but you cannot ignore the essential qualities that he brings in as a mentor. And these qualities are to do with fundamentally questioning our choices and our approach, the importance of research, the ability to think objectively and the absolute need to avoid clichés and stereotypes.
Yes I would say that Ramu is one of the very few contemporary theatre makers who think out of the box.
Chaitanya Tamhane: I do tell Ramu that I may not like all his work but I know that the stuff that he delivers is not pretentious or offending.
Sudeep Modak: He is also exposed to international theatre and he is able to share his experience in a positive manner.
What about your contemporaries in theatre? I mean young people like yourselves whom you think are doing good work?
Chaitanya Tamhane: Most of these ‘celebrated’ young people as I said earlier are really doing horrendous work. But one of the recent plays that I quite liked was BUTTER AND MASHED BANANAS by Ajay Krishnan. His play was part of the THESPO youth theatre festival.
What do you feel about Chetan Datar who has come to be recognized in Marathi theatre?
Chaitanya Tamhane: My problem with Chetan Datar is that he does not experiment enough. He is in many ways stuck with playwrights like Tendulkar and short story writers like Manto. See even Vijay Tendulkar’s plays now appear to be dated.
Sudeep Modak: Actually I feel that Chetan Datar has at least attempted to experiment and in the process his productions are able to communicate things differently. He does try to innovate within the pronounced moulds of playmaking. Tendulkar is a great playwright; I am very fond of some of his plays but it just ends there.
What do you feel about Aslam Parvez?
Sudeep Modak: Aslam Parvez tries to get the best he can from a given subject. He is able to adapt himself very well to a particular situation. He is able to understand the director he is working with with and the style that is required. I should however mention that I have not been really exposed to non commercial work by him.
Do you think Indian cinema has fared better as against our theatre today?
Chaitanya Tamhane: A lot of Indian cinema is still twenty or thirty years behind time but yet good films have proved that it is definitely fifty years ahead of our theatre. I recently recall watching an original Indian English play, which was part of the Writers’ Bloc II festival. Now this play was the most celebrated at the festival and was thought to have intellectual credibility. But when I saw it I thought the Hindi film ‘Dhoom II’ was better. At least there are no pretensions. I think there are a few clichés and subjects that we simply need to get over with. These range from domestic violence to child abuse.
Do you feel these subjects are clichés or do you feel that they need to be looked at anew?
Chaitanya Tamhane: My grouse is that I haven’t seen a single play where the perspective has changed. Most of these plays have one character that is being screwed endlessly and you are supposed to sympathize with that character. This is manipulation of emotions. There is no craft to it.
Sudeep Modak: I must say that I am sometimes confused by what Chaitanya has to say. He has exposed my friends and me to world cinema and I feel that what he is trying to say is that there is a dire need to think differently.
I do sense that. It’s not that the themes are only troublesome but that they have to be explored and presented in a manner that is just not sentimental or melodramatic. Am I correct?
Chaitanya Tamhane: That too but again with themes, there are so many things that we can show, which are relevant and contemporary. Why be stuck with the same themes too? Better to go and do some social work than manipulating the audiences’ feelings with overdone plots and dialogues. I can’t seem to understand the point of such plays at all. Or one must have the drive to go beyond and genuinely hit the note that can stir people. Unfortunately I can only give you examples of films in which the changed perspective makes for a moving experience. Consider films like ‘City of God’, ‘Underground’, etc. The changed perspective of the most universal of subjects elevates these films and truly makes them a great work of art. There is a soul behind these productions and a craft is perceptible.
So where do you think the problem lies?
Chaitanya Tamhane: I don’t know…but consider a script like Satish Alekar’s BEGUM BARVE. Now you have a benchmark of a subject that deals with cross-dressing and transvestites. If you ignore that benchmark and still go on to do something that appears more soppy than real, then there is a problem, isn’t it? I think BEGUM BARVE is a great play as is his MAHANIRWAN. Now the dimensions that Alekar has been able to bring to the themes are truly laudable. When you even look at Ramu’s work I don’t think his best play is his most celebrated play. According to me his best play so far has been COLLABORATORS, a play that completely bombed.
Yes COLLABORATORS is one of my favourite plays too but I didn’t like the production as much as I enjoyed the play-reading.
Chaitanya Tamhane: Now that’s a play that is so fresh in its approach to a contemporary issue.
So how do you guys see yourself in the theatre? Would you call yourselves actors or directors with a vision…what?
Chaitanya Tamhane: I am a failed actor turned failed writer turned failed director turned magician!
Gosh! Are you serious? Then you need to demonstrate some magic for me. You think you have some for our theatre?
(Laughter).
*The interviewer is Editor of this site, a theatre critic and an academic keenly interested in Theatre and Performance Studies.
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