A decade ago, Faezeh Jalali was named, by a magazine, as a face to watch out for. She lives up to the prediction, and is today, among the finest directors on the stage, winning awards and appreciation for ‘07/07/07’ and ‘Shikhandi’ — both plays with strong social messages and a uniquely energetic style of presentation. Since she moved to direction and writing, she has cut down on acting. “I am always the understudy,” she says, “I haven’t been able to crack the thing about directing and acting in a play. But once it is ready and somebody can’t do it, it is easy for me to step in.”
Over the years, Jalali, like Peter Pan she played in a production, has not aged a bit, she had the lithe appearance that comes from discipline and physical exertion. She runs miles, does not drink caffeinated beverages or eat junk food; she won’t drink water from a plastic bottle, is a vehement supporter of environmental causes and her conviction shows in her work.
For the new play she is working on—‘Vineet Bhalla’s Farming Story’ (that won the Sultan Padamsee Award for Playwriting in 2016, when Jalali’s own ‘Shikhandi’ was a runner up), a dark Orwellian play that only a brave director would take up. She sent out a social media call for clothes and support in kind, so that the set and costumes of the play could be made of recycled material. What attracted her to Bhalla’s work was its political commentary and very contemporary world view. He has been working with her on editing and altering the script to suit an Indian audience, and she finds the process exciting. “He has been very supportive. I will collaborate with him in the future too, he is a really good writer.”
Her own play, a satire on a provocative subject about godmen, has been put aside after one draft so that she can concentrate on ‘Farming Story.’ Like her last two productions, this one will use a physical theatre format that Jalali is best at. “My approach has always been to find movement in the text,” she says. “Otherwise a play can get very stagnant. I really enjoy the idea of physical storytelling. I think theatre is physical form, even when you are not doing choreographed movement. We end up doing a lot of work with the text, but you are also looking at the physical heart of it, or the audience could just read the play. Gradually, I realised that this is how I am able to discover or understand or go deeper into something by actually finding a physical expression for it.”
PUDUCHERRY, 14/04/2016: (For Page 2) A scene from the play 7/7/07 by Faezeh Jalali from Mumbai. Photo: Special Arrangement
Did she, like so many other actors, take to writing because she could not find a play she wanted to do? “One level, yes, I was tired of seeing the usual Brecht and Chekov. They are great to read, learn from and understand, but in terms of performance, I feel like working with something we can relate to. We have our own sensibilities, our own theatre culture. I have always written. When I was younger, I wrote a lot of poetry and ideas and stream of consciousness kind of stuff. At some point you realise where your strength and intent lie. You have to read plays and watch plays and start sifting through it all and by a process of eliminating what you don’t want to do, you find out what you really want to do. Now I know that nothing is s***, it just may not be what I prefer, just as a lot of people may not prefer what I like.”
For ‘Shikhandi,’ she used Indian theatre forms such as Koodiyattom and Yakshagana, with a witty text that combined mythology and contemporary gender concerns in a seamless way. “Shikandi happened first as a short, devised piece at a workshop I attended in Germany in 2010. I wanted to do it as a full-length play and was able to structure it and write it as a long poem. I guess it came out of my own catharsis of life and when I showed it to people, they all said it was good.
“I like to work with content I can relate to as a person and a director and maybe also an actor; because when I write, it is also the actor in me writing. What is exciting for me is what is happening now. It’s not that I don’t like classical drama, but it has to be a piece I can relate to. As a director, I like the idea of ensemble work, the multiplicity of other lives. I did an open audition for ‘Farming Story’ and a hundred and fifty people turned up. There were some amazing actors, the level of talent has gone up. There were many young people, who will later get too busy to commit to training or doing a residency, because I think one week outside Mumbai is like a month in the city.”
Does she think it important or necessary that her plays be socially relevant, or an extension of the activism she is personally involved with? “It may not be necessary but it is important,” she replies.”Your work is a reflection of who you are and what you do. ‘Farming Story’ is socially and politically relevant, but next year, I might just decide to do a farce. ‘07/07/07’ and ‘Shikhandi’ made a point, but I don’t know if any theatre is totally pointless. A play could communicate something or make a statement, but you could do it in the guise of entertainment. That does not mean that there is always a burden to say something unless you want to say it.”
When she was a student, Jalali wanted to be a dentist. At an undergrad programme in the U.S., she could combine liberal arts with pre-med studies, but after a “reality check,” theatre won. She wanted to go in for graduate studies in the U.S. only if she got a full scholarship — “I couldn’t burden my dad any more” — which she did at the University of Tennessee. “It was a life-changing experience, truly magical. It was an international programme, so we were taken out of America to do theatre in other countries. I even came to Mumbai and interned with Rehaan Engineer.”
It was in Russia that a drama teacher told her that she came from two such rich cultures — Iran and India — why didn’t she use that? She realised that she missed the connection to traditional Indian theatre forms, a lacuna, that was filled, ironically, by a white director, Tim Supple and his extraordinary multi-cultural, multi-lingual production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ Not only did she get to learn skills like malkhamb, but also interact with other actors who may not have had her education but had skills very different from what she had acquired. “My ego was flattened and I was ready to start again from ground zero.” That’s the point from which the only way is up.
The writer is a Mumbai-based author, critic and columnist
