Here Come the Gypsy Players

Regulars in India since 1995,they have largely lived in the confines of hotels while visiting. That’s why their next project is something they hold very dear. Titled The Dream…To Tour India in a Tent,it is planned for 2012 when the players will travel across India with all their colourful pageantry to perform plays in villages and small towns,at hill stations and sea-sides,and collaborating with Indian artistes in the process.

In Delhi,their latest pit-stop,Footsbarn members are finalising details of the road-trip. But before that they will be staging Victor Hugo’s A Man Who Laughs (L’ Homme Qui Rit) at Baha’i Temple on November 14 and 16. “We were destined to adapt A Man Who Laughs as the parallels with our company are uncanny. It is a French masterpiece which is set in Cornwall,where our company,(now based in La Chaussee in France) began in the barn of a family called Foots (hence the name) in 1970,” says Patrick Hayter,actor and artistic director,who joined the group in 1973. “But more importantly,it is a story of travelling players in a positively Shakespearean world,” he adds. The play is being held in association with Alliance Francaise and the Embassy of France.

The work dates to 1694 and features a young boy called Gwynplaine who is mutilated in a way that it appears he is laughing all the time. As he journeys through life with the permanent scar,“half sad and half smiling,” the audience enters a bizarre world of abandoned children,fairs,jugglers and strolling players as well as rebellious lords and vengeful kings. “It is said that Gwynplaine is the inspiration behind the Joker in the Batman comics,” says Patrick,58,who plays the 22-year-old Gwynplaine. “I let the story transform me into the person I must be on stage,” he adds.

Patrick’s big moment comes during a passionate social speech towards the end when Gwynplaine delivers a passionate speech on poverty and unemployment and questions the logic of giving more money to the queen. “I was surprised how contemporary these issues still are,” says Fredericka Hayter,who is in charge of the set,masks and props.

It’s the relevance of themes that make Footbarn plays popular despite the mix of languages. A Man Who Laughs,which premiered in 2007,is in English and French but Hayter points out that one of their previous works The Odyssey,which was largely produced in Kerala and has Indian artistes,is in five languages including Polish and Danish. “As a travelling group,we faced the challenge of taking our plays to an audience who didn’t understand our language. We decided to work on the other senses,hence music,masks,movements,burlesque are as important in our plays as the text. The actors know several theatrical adaptations and are,at once,clowns,acrobats and puppeteers,” she adds.

In the past 35 years,the group has produced nearly 60 plays,from works of Moliere to Shakespeare,and travelled to six continents. Along the way,several old members have left,new ones have entered and children who have now grown up,have come back to lend a hand with productions.

A Man Who Laughs involves more than 15 actors and crew and the nationalities stretch from French and British to Japanese and Polish. “But even members who aren’t here in India at present are excited about the Dream… project because we have never toured India with a tent. We will do open shows in a tent in Portugal and other places in Europe before arriving in India in November. When we leave,the tent will remain here as a theatrical device,” says

Patrick,before he signs off with the classic Footsbarn line: “I think we’ll just have to go on until we drop down dead. We won’t be the first. Moliere and Tommy Cooper both died on stage. It’s a dream way to go.”

The play will be staged in Delhi at the Baha’i Temple on November 14 and 16. For details,contact: Alliance Française de Delhi at 43500200