The Director8217;s Role

Theatre director and actor Vikram Kapadia defies easy categorisation. The white khadi kurta and jhola invite the stereotype of the intell...

Theatre director and actor Vikram Kapadia defies easy categorisation. The white khadi kurta and jhola invite the stereotype of the intellectual. But not the natty cell-phone ensconced in his lap. As the Bombay-based stage director whose production, The Musk Maiden, features in the Prithvi Theatre festival next month, puts it, quot;My material aspirations and theatrical vision are like the US and what used to be the USSR the one is completely at odds with the other. I want to experiment with unusual ideas, at the same time I also want to be rich and own a Ferrari!quot;

Which is why major formative influences include Peter Brook, Grotowski and Stanislovsky, Kapadia as well as Salim Ghouse and Naseeruddin Shah, with whom he co-directed Julius Caesar in 1992. Spanning plays such as The Typists, Dance and the Rail Road, Julius Caesar, Tuglaq and Romeo and Juliet, Kapadia8217;s oeuvre reveals a recent shift in favour of plays written by Indian playwrights.

quot;I now realise that the only reason for my doing English theatrewas my ease with the language. We are always doing plays written by American and British playwrights plays with names like John and Mary and Peter. After a while one began to question why we continue to do plays that have no bearing to our own context.quot; Girish Karnad8217;s Tuglaq, which Kapadia directed in 1993, marked the beginning of the latter8217;s association with Indian playwrights.

The Musk Maiden, adapted from Makrand Deshpande8217;s Hindi play Kasturi, is another product of the same philosophy. Grounded in Indian legend, The Musk Maiden is a multi-layered exploration of female sexuality, and has as its protagonists two women, Kasturi and Maya, who embody contrary feminine impulses. quot;Kasturi, the original play on which The Musk Maiden is based, is inspired by the legend of Mrignayani8217;.

In the play, musk, which is also used as an aphrodisiac, emanates from Mrignayani8217;s navel in the avatar of Kasturi. At a literal level, the play is about a woman who denies her own sexuality. But the play operates throughthe shifting metaphors of fact and fiction. Decoding the play8217;s meaning is like solving a jigsaw puzzle.quot; Featuring former veejay Suchitra Pillai in the lead role, the cast of Musk Maiden also includes Mita Vashisht and veteran Gujarati actor, Darshan Jhariwala. quot;The interesting thing about the cast is that Suchitra8217;s personality is more akin to the role being played by Mita, and vice versa. In fact, a week after finalising the cast, I almost swapped their roles. But eventually I decided that it would be more interesting to subdue Mita8217;s energy and make Suchitra8217;s character bolder.quot;

Kapadia plans to have an expressionistic set, all in white, to enhance the ivory-tower feeling . Live music and the use of slides are the other highlights. The director8217;s next production is a Marathi political satire called Shobha Yatra. Also on the anvil is a production of Naushal Mehta8217;s Nushal Mehta Commits Suicide, which inspired Ketan Mehta8217;s film Hero Heeralal.

The Musk Maiden at the Prithvi Theatre. On Nov17. Time: 6.00 pm and 9.00 pm.