The screen slant

Shadow of Othello being staged at the festival

The programme includes several film personalities who began their careers in theatre — directors Anurag Kashyap and Imtiaz Ali, Kirkire, a prominent lyricist, and actors Kumud Mishra and Manav Kaul. During the early years of cinema, theatre not only lent its form but also actors to the big screen, including Prithviraj Kapoor. The talent over the decades has only reiterated this further, with names such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri and more recently Irrfan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

A graduate of NSD, Kohli has taken a small break from acting to direct Blackbird, an adaptation of Scottish playwright David Harrower’s play by the same name. The play will be performed today. He and his co-director Prashant Kumar, both from the 2012 batch of the institution, believe that training and a background in theatre equips an actor in many ways for the big screen. “For instance, our batch trained in the classical dance form Koodiyattam for three months. We were asked to apply what we learnt to modern theatre,” says Kumar.

Taking a break from rehearsing, Kirkire says that the logistics and economics of theatre often hones an actor in multiple disciplines. For instance, it made Dolly Ahluwalia attempt costume design and in his case, penning lyrics. “When rehearsing for plays at NSD, we would need lyrics and I would watch Piyush Mishra write them in a matter of a few minutes. It demystified the creative process for me and encouraged me to try it out, too,” he says.

However, mostly, theatre is viewed as a stepping stone to a career in films. With a wider audience, it allows an actor the exposure and also brings the attached perks. Theatre performer and occasional film actor Kumud Mishra, however, differs in his views. He believes that the two mediums have a different language and neither is superior over the other. “When the medium of cinema was new, talent naturally came from theatre. But today, good actors don’t necessarily come from the stage. Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh or Deepika Padukone do not have that training but are fine performers,” says Mishra, who will be delivering a talk today on ‘Theatre to Cinema’ as part of Khidkiyaan.

Kirkire, too believes that cinema remains a “medium with a different language”. “Theatre is an actor’s medium and needs one to be wholly immersed. But cinema, shot non-linearly, often needs an actor to make the journey of the character from its beginning to the end on his own,” says the actor-lyricist, who has written the lyrics for the upcoming film, Fitoor.

However, the actors are all united in the belief that there is a need to encourage theatre in Mumbai. “With limited and expensive spaces to both rehearse and perform, fewer plays are staged in the city. This, as a result, attracts less quality talent. If the presence of and endorsement by names such as Kaul, Ali and so on brings in audience, it will help theatre flourish,” says Mishra.