Act II, Scene I

Sahitya Akademi award-winning playwright Mahesh Dattani8217;s Mango Souffle written and directed by him is already doing the international film festival rounds and he is looking at a release in Bangalore early next year. Dattani describes the film as a 8216;metrosexual8217; love story. 8216;8216;I think the market is opening up for films based on reality, films with pungent, strong subjects. Not just the average feel-good romance,8217;8217; says Dattani, who has adapted the film from his play On A Muggy Night in Mumbai.

Bangalore-based Prakash Belawadi, also a playwright, is armed with statistics 8212; 8216;8216;One: The Kannada film industry used to release 80-85 films a year, now they are down to 50, basically because the films we produce in this state are lousy. Two: Of the 100-odd films Bollywood released this year, most are about an exotica you and I cannot relate to. Where are the real people8230; where are we?8217;8217; Belawadi is therefore getting his Stumble 8212; about a family caught in the dotcom bust 8212; ready. 8216;8216;Economics can be dry, but not when it8217;s you and me losing money. Then it8217;s an emotion,8217;8217; he says.

In one way, playwrights shifting focus to writing and directing movies is proving good for theatre because most often they are casting theatre artistes. 8216;8216;Most cinema actors don8217;t have a good work ethic. They come with too much baggage,8217;8217; says Dattani. His film stars Atul Kulkarni and Heeba Shah, both with theatre backgrounds.

Chennai-based playwright-director Chetan Shah, who is scripting a movie whose theme and name he refuses to divulge he only says it is in Hinglish and about a bunch of students, says he is casting people with theatre backgrounds because he is 8216;8216;not into star names8217;8217;. 8216;8216;I want actors who suit the characters, who can do justice to the roles. My subject does not need stars. In fact, the first play I wrote, Slow Dissolve, is all about my complete disgust with the Indian film industry.8217;8217;

But Hyderabad Blues film director Nagesh Kukunoor who once adapted and directed a radio play because 8216;8216;it made me a little cash8217;8217; doesn8217;t think a crossover between the two mediums is possible. He says, 8216;8216;Stage and film have virtually nothing in common. While stage does produce some great actors, it is not a given that those actors will freely translate into great actors on screen barring, of course, Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah. Same for directors and writers. Stage and film require very different skill sets.8217;8217;

Chennai-based Timeri Murari realised this when he tried to turn his screenplay for the Time-magazine-acclaimed Daayra 8212; The Square Circle into a script for stage. 8216;8216;I had to condense the cast, the work, the landscape, actors had to double up roles. But I did get to retain my original ending and keep the lead character alive in the film, directed by Amol Palekar, he dies. That8217;s a big screen out there8230; this is a small stage.8217;8217;

Chetan Shah describes he difference: 8216;8216;The novel is a landscape of the mind, the play a landscape of the word and the film a landscape of action.8217;8217; Dattani says that in film, since the medium is larger than life, the artistic treatment has to be smaller than life. Theatre, he feels, is just the opposite.

8216;8216;Playwrights might be making the transition to try and reach out to a larger audience,8217;8217; Kukunoor maintains. 8216;8216;But one should have a strong desire to want to make films. You can8217;t just go from play to film, making the inherent and completely incorrect assumption that theatre is superior to filmmaking.8217;8217;

Dattani and Belawadi disagree with the above statement. 8216;8216;That8217;s like saying a sculpture is better than a painting. I just decided I wanted to direct a movie. The producers chose my script,8217;8217; says Dattani.

8216;8216;I wish I had stumbled on this medium much earlier,8217;8217; says Belawadi. 8216;8216;Most plays never see the light of day. If they do, it8217;s for two to three days, maybe a week. There is virtually no professional English theatre in India. I feel like making a movie every year.8217;8217;

And he just may do that. Belawadi already has his next theme in mind 8212; minoritisation, because 8216;8216;we all get minoritised at some point or the other, even Brahmins8217;8217;.