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'I do not write merely to be read'

Mahesh Dattani discusses various aspects of his career and work with TUTUN MUKHERJEE during a recent visit to the city

MAHESH DATTANI wears many hats - actor, playwright, theatre and film director, dancer, and teacher. His plays explore human relationships and represent contemporary people with their predicaments and complexities, joy and anguish. On a recent visit to the city, Dattani talks of theatre and film among other things.The plays of Badal Sircar, Vijay Tendulkar, Mohan Rakesh and Girish Karnad are accessible through translation. Does your writing in English confine your work to a particular kind of audience?

English has a ubiquitous presence throughout the country. I was born and brought up in Bangalore and therefore have an urban sensibility. I performed my first plays there. My plays are about what I see, feel and understand. Since I write in English, I guess my plays would appeal immediately to the people who have grown up with the language; yet what the plays present is an Indian life style and so would be significant for all Indians.

What drew you to theatre and when did you start writing plays?

I participated in the usual school plays and skits but I always yearned to direct performances. I realised that there must be a script for a performance. That's why I started writing - not very serious stuff though, initially. I watched a play whenever I could. Every time there was a group from Bombay or Ahmedabad staging a play in Bangalore, it became a community event that we would all attend. I remember a play I saw as a child at Ravindra Kalakshetra that fascinated me. It used the "play within the play" concept that I'd never seen before and a dramatic finale that took place in the auditorium. The teasing tone, the costume and make-up, the lights -- were all bright and loud yet I was utterly captivated. I later learnt that it was Madhu Rye's Koi Pun Ek Phool Nu Naam Bolo (Tell me the name of a flower). He is a sensational playwright. I got the chance to see his other plays, especially Kumarni Agashe (Kumar's Terrace), also in Hindi as Neela Kamra, in Bombay. Then the Bangalore Little Theatre was formed and I became seriously involved in acting, directing and writing plays. I learnt much from Vijay Padaki in the early years. I started my own theatre studio after a few years.

Multi-faceted

Your plays can be described as `total theatre' - you use music, dance, action, language, even silence, in the most evocative manner.

I have always been drawn by the spectacular - music and dance and magnificent scenes. When I was small, my mother took me to see Hindi films and I enjoyed watching Vyjayantimala's dances, and Madhubala's Amrapali and the Sheesh Mahal sequence of Moghul-e-Azam remain unforgettable.

You know, natya as the definitive term for Indian theatre makes music and dance integral parts of a play. To have separate spaces for these arts is a Western concept. Somehow these elements became separated from modern Indian drama. Bombay films continue to use them and that may be the secret of the wide and continuing appeal of the films! As for me, music was the ethos I grew up in. Later, I trained in ballet and that introduced me to Western classical music. I also learnt Bharatanatyam. The plot of Dance Like a Man derives from Bharatanatyam.

How has dance helped you as a director and a playwright?

I get a better sense of space, rhythm and pace. I would recommend ballet for training actors for a variety of reasons. Or any Indian dance form, for that matter. One learns to discipline the body through dance.

When you conceive of a play, do you visualize the entire stage set-up?

I usually have an elaborate stage design for a play, which conveys an important visual impact. For example, there is a horse-shoe-shaped ramp spanning the backspace of the stage in Final Solutions where the chorus carrying masks crouch through the entire play. Of course other directors of my plays are free to design the stage as they wish.

Does a play germinate from an idea that might suddenly appeal to you?

They invariably do. Social issues move me and I like to examine an idea from different angles. The plays where the content came first are On a Muggy Night and Final Solutions. As for the latter, I was asked to write a play about communal tensions and I said, `what can one write about that other than platitudes?' But out of that churning emerged Final Solutions. Sometimes the characters spoke to me first, as in Tara and On a Muggy Night. In Dance like a Man, the plot emerged out of a flashback structure where the same actors play different generations. Sometimes images make the first impact; then, the set.

You often use `key words' and metaphors to pivot the plot.

Yes, like the bonsai and the enigmatic "Kanhaiya" in Bravely Fought the Queen, the evanescent "star" of Twinkle Tara... .

What are your views on the theatre scene in India?

I regret that there is no theatre movement, as there have been in the West. There are repertory groups, but they busy themselves with adaptations of classics and European plays. We do have individual establishments like Karnad or Sircar or Tendulkar or Panikker. But unless there is a movement, there won't be a vibrant theatre in India.

You are directing films too. Will cinema's gain be theatre's loss?

Let's say that I am exploring yet another medium of expression. After a couple of films, I am just getting to understand the idiom. Who knows, my next play might be all about making films?

The writer is Professor of English at Osmania University

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