Via Rangoon

On the Gujarati adaptation…

The festival director of the Globe to Globe Festival asked if we were willing to do a Shakespeare play in Gujarati. The UK has a large Gujarati population and this would be a great opportunity to bring in a lot of people who, otherwise, would not go to Globe. The way the play was adapted and designed was for Gujarati theatre audiences. A lot of Gujarati theatre is pure entertainment — loud and comic performances, or dramatic family dramas — and we were looking for a way to present Shakespeare! We set the story in the 1900s when the main character moves from a small town in Saurashtra to Bombay, which was a growing port city, and where his uncle is a very powerful merchant prince. The girl follows him here and he runs away from her to Rangoon, which was a major outpost for trade in rice, timber and semi-precious stones. We followed the Bhangwadi style of theatre which was very popular in the 1900s, with songs, music, movement and painted curtains. What the audiences saw was Shakespeare, but also their own history.

…and the new play

I always wanted a non-Gujarati audience to watch the play but, because of the language, I could not stage it widely. Mere Piya Gaye Rangoon is in Hindi and we asked ourselves, ‘How do you retain the Gujarati flavour in a different language’. Writer Mihir Bhuta has used a language that is lyrical and archaic, but not located in any specific Hindi language culture such as the dialects of UP or Bihar. India has large trading communities and a rich history of trade, and the play opens up a little bit of the fascinating history of India’s mercantile past.

Musical Colour

Uday Mazumdar, who has done a lot of work in Gujarati theatre, composed the music. The songs are melodic and integral to the story, and the lyrics are important. We turned the soliloquies as well as some dialogues into songs. A part of the music happens in Burma and he had to find a tone that would suit the local musical colour of Burma.

School of Art

What FTII represents to me is an idea. What we need in India are artistic spaces, where artists can try different things, make mistakes and bounce back. I was never trained formally in theatre and often regret not having a few years as a student where I could be immersed in what I was doing and come out enriched, without worrying about success or failure. FTII represents such a space and we must nurture it. When the students asked me to come and speak, I said I would come with my group of young actors who are part of our Tamaasha Theatre company and stage a play. We presented Blank Page, which explores contemporary Indian poetry in four languages through live music and performances. We turned an acting studio into a hall and about 200 people attended.

The play will be staged at Kamani Auditorium on August 15 (7.30 pm) and 16 (4 pm & 7.30 pm). Tickets: Rs 300-Rs 1,000 at bookmyshow.com