Making sense of dreams

As Atul Kumar continues his experiments with Shakespeare, the seasoned theatre practitioner says collaboration between different art forms is the only way ahead

January 21, 2017 11:27 pm | Updated 11:27 pm IST

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE A scene from “Khwaab-Sa”

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE A scene from “Khwaab-Sa”

S ome time back Atul Kumar told his friend and colleague Rajat Kapoor that he was done with the traditional theatre practice and wanted to explore newer ways to explore himself on stage. The result was “Piya Behrupiya”, a clever translation of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” in nautanki form. Even as “Piya Behrupiya” continues to evoke tremendous response, Atul has taken one more step into the wild with “Khwaab-Sa”. It is an evocative adaptation of the Bard’s timeless comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Hindi gibberish with contemporary dance and music being used as a story telling device. “It is a text that has fascinated me since childhood. There are stories of lovers in the forest, fairies, mistaken identities and magic. Since very early I knew that theatrical possibilities in this play are immense and that is what triggered me to explore it.” The exciting collaboration between different art forms as Atul puts it took shape when the seasoned theatre practitioner joined hands with contemporary dancer and choreographer Diya Naidu and composer Anurag Shanker. During discussions, Atul reminisces, actor-director Imran Rasheed came up with the title “Khwaab-Sa” that captures the spirit of the play staged in New Delhi’s LTG Auditorium this weekend.

Atul Kumar

Atul Kumar

“I thought let’s bring our energies together and see what happens. So it started as a collaboration with contemporary dance and moved on to very loud electronic music, which I have never liked in my life but here it started making sense. So Anurag came on board,” says Atul, who used these forms to bring together the three parallel worlds in the play. “Here form takes precedence over content. There are lovers, there are fairies and then there are bad actors who have been asked to do the play. I am calling it Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night Dream’, but there is a lovers’ section that is done without words. The mistaken identity, the angst, the fights and final reconciliation that happens between four bodies is communicated through just music and dance. It is something that is completely new to me.” The theatre section, Atul continues, was decided to be done in Hindi gibberish. “We had done it with Rajat Kapoor’s ‘C for Clowns’. Saurabh Nayyar, who played Malvolio in ‘Piya Behrupiya’ came up with the idea that why don’t we try something that is phonetically Indian sounding and is still rubbish. Saurabh wrote it like a script in Devanagri. It was another experiment that we tried. It worked well in Bangalore, where the play opened.”

According to Atul, collaboration is the only way ahead now. “Now, theatre is not limited to standing on stage and delivering your lines. And I don’t want youngsters looking at me with an impression: aap abhi bhi yahi kartein hain.”

Atul has years of practice behind him. What about a youngster who starts his Shakespeare experience with gibberish? “It depends on how you evolve. When we started doing gibberish and clowning we had no inkling where we were going. It worked. Of course, there were some experiments that failed but the whole idea is to jump in a new direction with your sincerity and craft, and it will connect with the audience. The key to the whole thing is be ready to fail, yaar! Otherwise, we artists will keep packaging only those things which are easily acceptable to the audience. Now I am looking at a young artist from Kerala who is exploring Shakespeare without actors through a multimedia installation. There is no one way now. Internet and constant travel has ensured that influences from several cultures are changing things in India and vice versa.”

Some feel there is an element of market pressure in this evolution. Atul feels it is the other way round. “After ‘Piya Behrupiya’, I got many invitations to stage ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in the same format. I knew this was a successful formula and would have done it in a month. But that is not why I am doing theatre. If I have to recycle, I might as well go back to my father’s business and sell dry fruits. It is about what fires you up. My last piece was experiential theatre (‘Seven Jews Children’) where audience get participative. We would perform at alternative spaces for 6 to 8 hours for an audience of eight people. It was completely non-commercial as eight people would get to see the whole show but we wanted our audience to explore that world.”

An important image of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is the love making sequence between Bottom, the man with a donkey’s head and Titania. It can be interpreted in many ways including the fluidity of sexual identity. “It is there is in the original text and then we had the licence of contemporary dance. It is aesthetically done with movement and gesture. It becomes exciting and even dark and eerie – a midsummer nightmare, where animals, human beings, trees get sensually involved and then become one with nature.” In terms of content, Atul continues, “If you want me to go into the scholarly side of the play there are lot of different things that one can interpret as relevant in Indian society today. One is the very famous speech of Titania where she talks of how the disagreements between the powers that be in the society causes apocalyptic results. She talks of how the rivers would swell up, making suggestions to global warming, how people would eat each other and crows would feast on carcasses...lot of dark things. When we turn Shakespeare’s works on their head, we imbibe all these things and represent what is happening in our society. What I definitely don’t want to do is to create any moment where a character stands and explain that this imagery is a comment on that section of law.”

Atul opens up about a disturbing experience when he shared the Kangra paintings of Radha and Krishna in embrace on his Facebook page. “I made a collage and within minutes I started getting hate mails. It was the time when the homosexuality debate was also raging. I added images of Khajuraho and Konark to make my point but I was reported and Facebook closed my account. I had to tell the Facebook guys that these images are from places which have been declared as heritages sites by the UNESCO. I come from a Hindu orthodox background. Many members of my family are supporters of right wing politics. You can understand what kind of upbringing I would have had and in many ways my work is a reaction to what I have gone through to be able to liberate myself of the shackles. I can share my experience with you but on stage I have to find ways to say that to audience.”

Looking into future, the founder of The Company Theatre and a familiar face in art residencies, says actors are getting concerned that acting is not learnt only by acting and that it could be learnt through various other experiences. “So they are opening their horizons by involving themselves in different kinds of things in life. This is making performances richer. Theatre is moving into alternative spaces. One very big space now is digital space that people are exploring. I keep meeting my contemporaries who say, par yaar theatre to live hi hona chahiya . Not my scene. I want to race the young, and lose.” Brave!

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