Bisharad Basnet loves to be a clown, on and off stage. He says he can never be one of those theory-quoting and grim looking theatre intellectuals. When you meet him, you get what he is saying. He greets you with a beaming smile. And there is never a dull moment. One minute, he is all calm and reflective of his craft and in the next he hops off his seat like a little child to enact something. “I have never been serious in my life. Even as a kid, I mimicked my folks. In school I used to wonder why everyone was so serious,” says the 35-year-old Nepalese theatre actor and director.
The director of The Acting School of India, Mumbai, was in the city to conduct a theatre workshop, organised by Helen O' Grady Drama Academy. “Remove your masks and be yourself,” he tells the participants, while he conducts a session of clowning technique, a branch of stage acting. Participants, with their faces smeared in paint and dressed in colourful wigs, introduce themselves as clowns. “You are in a clown world. So act accordingly. Clowns must be able to see a horse in a donkey. Clowns have their own world and perceptions,” he instructs them.
Clowning is one of the main techniques taught in his institute. In fact, Bisharad and his team, will travel to Nepal and perform the clown act for the earthquake –hit people of Nepal. “The best thing about being a clown is you can put an instant smile on people’s faces. And, it gives you the freedom to do a lot of things. You can cut a person’s neck and still get away with it. A clown can be serious, sad and say the darkest of all things. It is liberating to be a clown.”
At the workshop, Bisharad does not make it easy for the participants. He probes them, taunts their accents and makes fun of their body language. Some of the participants are rattled, while a few others play along. “A clown is smart but in a different way. When the audience laughs at you for a mistake, you join them and laugh at yourself. That always works because the audience at the end of the day is egoistic,” says Bisharad. In his institute, students get out and into the streets and interact with people. Once, they were asked to earn some money from strangers. And surprisingly, some of the participants were able to convince people to shell out money for them! “And that’s what realistic acting is all about; being truthful and doing an act with conviction.”
Acting is a nuanced craft with so many layers to it, yet people assume anyone with good looks can pursue it as a serious career. “Can you say the same about a doctor or a singer? Think about the years of education a student of medicine has to put in before he turns into a doctor. Similarly think of the rigorous riyaaz a singer must do to hone his skill. Theatre is no different.” Bisharad too was one of the strugglers when he came to Mumbai a few years ago. He too nurtured dreams of entering films one day. “All I had was Rs.10,000 my mother gave me. I had to work in second-hand book shops, restaurants and wine shops.” Then, he started working for scholarships and attending theatre workshops. He was mentored by some of the finest theatre professionals in the country such as Veenapani Chawla.
Soon film and television offers knocked on his door. He has acted in a few films and Indian TV shows. However, he is still passionate about theatre. “The medium does not matter to me now because at the end of the day you are doing the same thing,” he says. “All my life experiences, good and bad, have moulded the artist in me. Being an actor is not easy. You have to face rejection and embarrassment. That is why I am making it tough for the participants here. They must not assume that acting is a cake walk. But, after knowing that, if they are still passionate about it, then they will pursue it genuinely.”
