Last year, when director Feroz Abbas Khan was looking for a performance space in Delhi which would do justice to his magnum opus, Mughal-e-Azam , he could not find one. Ironically, he had to settle for the weightlifting auditorium at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. From green rooms and washrooms to the performance area, the team had to put in the basics. Because Khan had the backing of infrastructure giants Shapoorji Pallonji, he could.
Disney followed, with Aladin scratching his lamp in the sports arena. The experience exposed the reality of Delhi’s drought of theatre spaces. Beyond Kamani Auditorium, Shri Ram Centre and LTG auditorium in the Mandi House area, there isn’t much theatre infrastructure in the city. For a small production or a professional theatre group that doesn’t find a sponsor each time it takes the stage, these are just ‘out of budget’, being in the heart of the capital. For anyone who wants to paint on a sprawling canvas, the stadium it is.
Not quite spotlit
Veteran theatre practitioner M. K. Raina says there isn’t a single well-equipped theatre in the capital. “Whatever there is, belongs to private entities. They run it their way. They charge a lot of money, but don’t update the infrastructure. The washrooms stink, the chairs are creaky and they are working with the same facilities for years.”
Seasoned playwright and director Danish Iqbal reminds us that these auditoriums were given land by the government of the day on discounted rates, because they were meant to serve arts and culture. He remembers the 1960s when Sapru House with its popular theatre appealed to different sections of society.
There are options like Stein Auditorium in India Habitat Centre, but Iqbal says these remain booked through the year because they hold other events as well. “IHC expects you to become a partner, which is not commercially viable. The auditorium of Alliance Francaise is affordable, but its stage doesn’t have the required depth.”
“More than half the budget of production goes into just booking a theatre,” says M. Sayeed Alam, whose Pierrot's Troupe has been in business for more than two decades. “Audiences feel that theatre is a booming commercial activity. And they are right in feeling that way if they buy a ticket for ₹500. But they don’t know that we end up paying ₹200-300 per seat to the auditorium administration. In such a scenario theatre ceases to be a commercial activity.”
Veteran theatre critic Diwan Singh Bajeli says if professional theatre groups can’t afford it, imagine the plight of the amateurs. “They have to make do with compact spaces such as Muktdhara in Gol Market and Akshara theatre on Baba Kharak Singh Marg.” Experimental theatre has OddBird Theatre in Chhatarpur that has emerged as a cosy option.
Breaking bad
Alam breaks it down to the basics. “In a houseful performance in Kamani auditorium involving 10 actors, we end up earning about ₹1,60,000. Out of this ₹80,000 goes as rent and ₹16,000 as GST. Even if I don’t count the cost of sets and props, the remaining ₹64,000 is too meagre an amount to be distributed among the 10 performers who rehearse for at least a week before the performance. Even a peon in a government office makes more than this amount.”
M.K. Raina, theatre actor and director
If performance spaces are shrinking, rehearsal spaces are non-existent. “If I do it at my residence, neighbours complain. If we hire a flat, we have to pay at least ₹500 a day,” says Alam, adding many theatre groups have to make do with public gardens for rehearsals. For him, there is no concept of a dress-rehearsal anymore. This adversity has given groups an opportunity to work on their imagination. “A stool becomes a throne and a rod becomes a sword. If a character walks four steps in a 15 by 12 feet room, he is told that he will have to make them 11 on the stage of Shri Ram Centre,” says Alam. He says that one of the reasons he does historicals is that they remain relevant for a long time.
The way out
Raina says that the governments, both the Centre and State, haven’t done enough. “If the government puts a ceiling on booking rate, we could also cut down on admission rates,” says Alam.
“Ideally, each district of Delhi should have one theatre. It need not be huge, a 300-seater, well-equipped auditorium will do. We need simple, modest spaces with professional equipment. Kerala has done it, we could as well,” says Raina. Bajeli suggests the Kolkata model where auditoriums are affordable. “It reflects in the significant increase in the entries of plays from West Bengal in the Bharat Rang Mahotsav.”
The Delhi government, Raina adds, has taken performances spaces to remote places in the city. “They fulfill the needs of classical dance and music, but those are not proper performance spaces for professional theatre. Open-air auditoriums are not feasible because of Delhi’s extreme climate and a three-month monsoon period.”
Many have found a creative jugaad by holding back-to-back shows or by asking newcomers to pay a fee for acting in plays. “Usually, we do a window show and expect it to break even and then wait for a sponsor to show interest,” says Alam. Given the number of monuments that abound in the city, Mohammed Ali Baig, who has created a sustainable model of heritage theatre in Hyderabad, says, it could be replicated in Delhi.
Meanwhile, Khan is back at the weightlifting arena with Akbar and Salim for another royal bout this April!
