Taramandal
August 8, 7.15 p.m.
It was easy to find a blueprint for his play in a master story teller's narrative, especially as it had a riveting, idiosyncratic character. But to extend Satyajit Ray's short story ‘Patol Babu, Film Star' into ‘Taramandal' the playscript, was to explore a fascinating subject — human ambition.
Since playwright Neel Chaudhuri is also the director of the script, he had every opportunity to show how, at a given moment, the protagonist's ordinary life turns into extraordinary drama.
Chaudhuri faced his biggest challenge in retaining Ray's original incident and idiom, while extending the narrative to include more characters. Despite self doubt (“Have I strayed too far?”) he took risks to avoid the literal and the obvious in converting words on the page to drama on the stage.
His fascination for cinema is obvious not only in his opting for a Ray connection, but in the structure he borrowed from Todd Haynes's “I'm Not There”, where Bob Dylan is split into six different characters. (Incidentally, his next project is titled ‘Ich bin Fassbinder'!)
Chaudhuri created parallel narratives to replace Patol's reminiscences, where the different stages become diverse characters in varying contexts, eventually forming a chorus of his missed experiences. Ray's story is based in Kolkata. Expanding this geographical-contextual specificity, ‘Taramandal' makes the voices and circumstances of each character find echoes in the other stories, especially in Patol's tale.
A trial-and-error process of audition, workshopping and improvisations later, Chaudhuri stitched the final play together from his notes documenting rehearsals. Stagecraft and time/format management dictated editing, re-imagining and revision on the floor.
With five plays behind him, Chaudhuri, artistic director of Tadpole Repertory, is painfully aware of the struggle to sustain independent theatre. Winning the MetroPlus Playwright Award 2010 was a godsend as it provided the means to produce ‘Taramandal' in the way he visualised it, and to stage it for a new audience in Chennai.
DIRECTOR’S CUT – NEEL CHAUDHURI
Is it an unmixed advantage to direct your own play?
I've enjoyed directing my five plays, but I'd also like to entrust my plays to another director's artistic vision. This is easier said that done, especially in English theatre. It seems convenient and efficient to have both roles fulfilled by one person. Perhaps, this is not always the wisest course. Directing must involve a certain amount of objective distance from the text, which I don't always have.
As a workshop production, what inputs has ‘Taramandal' drawn from actors?
I'm sensitive to any practical problem faced by the actors in realising directorial ideas. The actors in our tightly-knit group have continually challenged the text and design to make it stronger. One of the funniest lines came out accidentally during an improvisation, and now marks the conclusion to a tense scene. As a writer, you struggle to invent a sparkling moment like that!
What kind of an audience are you looking for?
The impetus has always been to produce work that will compel people to return to theatre and expect something new, strange and unusual, stimulating them beyond the confines of television and the LCD interface. I am excited about performing in Chennai, where our work is mostly unknown.
