Play Act

As she considers an empty wall of the Gharana restaurant at the Oberoi Grand,you don’t want to disturb Seema Chaddha. After all,it’s so easy to break a chain of thought. So cruel but so very easy. But you interrupt nonetheless,because you want to tell her that you thought she was brilliant in a small role in Luck by Chance. That her turn as a frumpy Delhi housewife in Rakeysh Mehra’s Delhi 6 really spoke to you. She wants to hear none of that. “Can we please not talk about films today? I am here to promote a play. Lets talk about theatre,” she says,not rudely but firmly.

So you ask her about her career in theatre. Where it all began,how it all began. “I was a part Rajat’s (Kapoor) group in Delhi. Then he went away to FTII,I moved to Mumbai too and have been associated with the theatre scene of Mumbai ever since,” says Chaddha who was in the city to perform in the play,The Blue Mug last weekend.

Since she wants the conversation to be restricted to only theatre,you ask her about the English language theatre scene in Mumbai,whether it’s thriving or feeding of moth-balled Neil Simon plays like the one in Kolkata. “I guess we all feed of on adaptations of English plays. There is very little original stuff being written. In fact,recently I was asked to judge a play-writing competition and I was disappointed with the quality of writing I come across. Yet,it’s also true that every now and then an innovative idea such as this (The Blue Mug),is celebrated ,” she says.