The Big Fish Syndrome

Plays from Mumbai ride high on star power and better publicity,and often hijack the spotlight of local English theatre in Pune.

Mahrukh Bharucha has been involved in theatre in Pune for 35 years now. But her biggest grouse is that plays from other cities,particularly from celeb-rich Mumbai,garner a better response in the city than the local plays. Somehow,Puneites have this idea that English theatre from Mumbai is better than local productions. It’s quite like the mindset that people had about imported goods before the economic boom, says Bharucha. Both the young and the experienced from Bharucha’s fraternity agree with this assessment. Twenty-four-year-old Hina Siddiqui of Orchstrated Q’Works says,It is hard to market yourself and harder when there’s nobody to really back you. And that is why local English theatre here is on a much smaller scale than cities like Mumbai.

In the last few months,a number of Mumbai plays have been enacted on city stages,the most recent being actor and theatre director Divya Palat’s Love Bytes. Held at a posh city hotel,the ticket price didn’t keep Pune audiences away from the rom-com. The Mumbai plays can come to Pune,charge R 500 or R 600 a ticket and still perform to a full house, observes Siddiqui. Her troupe staged its play Toba Tek Singh on Friday at Kalachaya Cultural Center. But we can’t even think of charging a high amount for the tickets. If we charge even R 150,people ask ‘why?’. It’s sad that our local theatre is hijacked by these out-of-town plays, she rues.

Every year in September,SSU (Searching and Service in Unity) puts up a play in support of a cause. Dean Lobo,president,SSU,says,We go to shops,put up posters,banners and even connect with the media and radio stations. We publicise plays in colleges. Publicity is the key. And that is where our Pune plays suffer. The plays from Mumbai,because of stars like Konkona Sen Sharma,Naseerudin Shah or the like,get instant publicity. Father Cyril Desbrulais,founder and animator,SSU,has been putting up plays for almost 40 years now. The productions sometimes include 40 or even 50 actors. Pune theatre is quality driven. But that fact needs to reach out to more people, Lobo says.

The shift in the theatre scene from musicals to the more experimental has made the going tougher. It’s so much more youth-oriented now, says Siddiqui. Bharucha acknowledges that there is very good quality work happening here,which suffers because there aren’t too many to back local talent. Until and unless local talent is actively nurtured by patrons and corporate sponsors,how will quality improve? And until and unless quality improves,how will the sponsors back the plays? So it’s quite like whether the chicken came first or the egg, she says.

While Siddiqui feels that hoping for a crowd of 200 people is enough,Jitendra R Pawar of Niche Stagekraft talks about performing plays at venues with a capacity of 750 people. Putting up plays for nine years now,Pawar says,We work only with Pune artistes and normally put up three or four plays a year. People expect a certain standard of plays and we do live up to that,but still the Mumbai plays are more talked about because of their star value. Niche Stagekraft generally prices its tickets between R 250 and R 350. If I have a star acting in my play,then even I can hike up the price, he adds.

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