The other side

Dubey,who says that she gets bored and restless if asked to do similar roles or even direct similar stories,is all praises for Pratap Sharma,who wrote the story of Sammy. “The play brings out Mahatma out of dusty books and presents him as you and me. Many Gandhians saw the play and they could not point out any mistake. This is not about any controversy,” she says.

Joy Sengupta,who plays Mohandas in the play,says,“This is a story of trials and errors in the life of Gandhi,who is as normal as anybody else and is in search of truth. It is a story of Gandhi beyond his image. Usually,image takes over real humans,because we tend to remember the image but forget the human being behind it. To play the character of Mohandas,we broke down the character and dealt with the human and not the Mahatma. So we had Gandhi as a human and still he was above all because he was determined to look for truth,to bring freedom for his countrymen and equality for blacks in South Africa.”

Talking about her acting career,Dubey says,“When asked have I done my best role so far,I answer that I have not yet. Because the day I do that,I will be dead. As a director too I need a message to be put across and good script makes it both- easy and interesting.”

Sengupta too agrees with the never-ending journey of an actor. “Why I don’t stick to one type of character is that I want to explore myself and that can never come to an end. With every character,we either learn how to live or how not to live.”

Talking about theatre as a medium,Dubey says,“Theatre is an actors’ medium,while film is director’s medium and that makes it an unmatchable experience for actors to work in theatre. It’s pure art and depends entirely on an actor’s ability to understand and translate the character.”

Sengupta says,“Theatre is nude. Here,we are actors from mind,body and soul. We can’t be anything else. We have to believe in the character and justify his or her flaws to accept and imbibe. We use our body and expression to take the director’s or the playwright’s idea to audience.”

The play traces the development of the young and naïve Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi from a protestor in South Africa into a shrewd politician and finally into an enlightened person – a Mahatma or Great Soul. The title of the play is easily explained and becomes clear in the early part of the action. The word sammy,along with the word coolie,was used as a derogatory term by the whites in South Africa to insult Indians and other coloured people. It originates from the word swami,which actually means master or guru. When he first hears an angry mob in Durban shouting the word as an insult to describe him,the young Mohan smiles and ventures the hope that he may some day be able to live up to it.

The Cast includes: Joy Sengupta,Vijay Crishna,Neha Dubey,Denzil Smith,Zafar Karachiwala,Vikrant Chatturvedi,Asif Beg and Anu Menon.