Numbers narrate the success of Akvarious Productions. The Mumbai-based theatre company performed around 150 shows of their various plays last year.
And when Akarsh Khurana, proprietor of Akvarious and director of most of those plays, brings the much-feted “The Interview” to the International Theatre Festival of Kerala, he is merely taking his theatre to newer avenues and audiences.
Theatre in India is about “creating opportunities for yourself”, believes the 32-year-old director. “Of the 150 shows last year, we performed only about 50 in Mumbai. We did plays all over the country, even in smaller towns like Bareilly and Jabalpur where theatre is happening on a large scale,” says Akarsh on the telephone as he lands in Kochi.
“The Interview” will be performed at Thrissur, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram.
Theatre for Akarsh was always about familiarity. His father, Akash Khurana, who began Akvarious, is equally at ease on stage and screen. “I always had the exposure to theatre and I was interested in plays in school and college. It was surprising when theatre evolved from a hobby to a profession. That's when I sank my teeth into it,” says Akarsh.
Akarsh had his stint as a marketing manager in a company, and theatre happened alongside. “Then I took a break from work and waited for about a year. Actually, I was on the verge of going back when I got the opportunity to write the screenplay for ‘Krrish'. I worked on the movie for close to three years and came back and attacked theatre with a vengeance,” he recalls.
That's when the Akvarious diary started getting busy. “When we started doing theatre full-time, we started getting better at it,” says Akarsh, who between plays has written the screenplay for “Kites”, “U, Me Aur Hum” and other movies.
All genres
From the Akvarious repertoire have emerged plays of all hues; rip-roaring comedies like “Rafta Rafta”, dark ones like “Blackbird”, adaptations like “Rebecca” and intense productions like “Baghdad Wedding”. Theatre works at a very basic level for Akarsh where the pleasure is in telling the tale. “Almost all our plays have a strong narrative structure. Except for absurd theatre, we have done all other kinds of plays. We like to straddle all genres,” says Akarsh.
“The Interview” happened by chance. First-time scriptwriter Siddharth Kumar wrote it to apply for Writer's Bloc, an initiative by Rage Theatre to introduce new playwrights to the Indian audience.
“He sent it to me for a feedback and it lay in my mail box for a long time. One day I read it and did so from start to finish at a stretch. I told Siddharth to forget the feedback and said I wanted to do the play immediately,” he says. Akarsh and Siddharth team up again for the company's latest production, “Spunk”.
Quite a few Akvarious productions, including “The Interview”, slant towards comedy. “Good comedy should be savoured. Plays that have long laughs tend to have longer legs. Comedies have a longer life,” he observes.
Despite the abundance of productions at Akvarious, where it is not rare to stage two different plays on successive days, Akarsh says keeping at it doesn't come easy. “Though we have been around for 11 years, it is only two years ago that we had an office and a rehearsal space,” he says. It is not easy, he finds, to pay his group some small return to sustain their commitment to theatre.
The Interview
Written by Siddharth Kumar and directed by Akarsh Khurana
The play, as the name suggests, is set in the back drop of an interview in a corporate office. “It is a voice anyone with a corporate experience can relate to. It is not a comedy, but a satire in the true sense of the word,” says Akarsh. It bagged the award for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Stage Design and Best Play at the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards, 2011.
The play will be performed at Tagore Hall on February 6 at 6.30 p.m.
