Brilliance on stage

Every once in a while, a play comes along that makes not just the audience but even theatre professionals go wide-eyed in wonder at the brilliance of it. On the occasion of World Theatre Day tomorrow, we asked a couple of theatre directors and actors about the stage performances that left an impact on their mind and here’s what they had to say...

Danish Husain, 
Actor and director

I recall when I first saw Habib Tanvir’s Agra Bazar, I thought it was the most complete theatre production I had seen. It mixes high literature, poetry, dance, drama, humour, satire. everything was so perfect and well-balanced that it was a wholesome experience. I’ve seen a lot of great plays in this country, but what Agra Bazar did for me, was how you feel when you’re young and you’ve gone to the cinema hall for the first time, the first time you see a film. I was wide-eyed. It was a great honour that I got to act in that play and I acted as the patangwala, the role Habib used to play himself. When I played that, he was in the audience watching. I thought it was the pinnacle of my stage-performance. It’s a milestone in Indian theatre. I doubt it could be ever done again as a lot of the cast is scattered. I think whoever saw Agra Bazar would consider themselves very lucky. The last Agra Bazar performance by Naya Theatre was in August 2011. 

Faezeh Jalali, 
Actor, director, teacher and trainer

I saw a play in Tehran a couple of years ago called Strange Creatures. It was a purely physical piece that blew my mind. A lot of their theatre is political, but this was physical also. Till that point I had not seen a play in Tehran, even though I’m Iranian and visit there often. I watched it and I thought it was amazing. It had no words. There were small vignettes - all political commentary on government, in a physical way. But, the images they created as an ensemble was beautiful. I also loved watching Usha Nagiar’s Koodiyatam performance Ahaliya last year at Prithvi Theatre. Also, I really liked Quasar Padamsee’s The Peasant of El Salvador and Tushar Pandey’s The Dumb Waiter, which is an adaptation of Harold Pinter’s play. 

Rasika Dugal, 
Actor

When I watched Phantom of The Opera on Broadway. I had never seen something on that scale before. I felt like this small-town girl who has arrived in the big city and seen the Gateway of India for the first time! I had that ‘wow’ expression on my face. It was overwhelming in terms of the music, the scale and the spectacle it presents. Every molecule of the performer in me was dancing and saying ‘I want to do this someday’. 

Quasar Padamsee, 
Director and Actor

I was 15 years old, acting in a play in school. Until then, all the school plays were about animals or far off kingdoms. Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie was different. It had power and poetry and spoke of the complicated relationships between human beings. I was in the middle of our final performance and I paused towards the end of the final monologue. And I literally felt the audience pause with me. At that moment, I knew that I always wanted to be a part of the theatre. It is magic. I was hooked.

Makarand Deshpande, 
Actor and director

I saw the Gujarati play Khelaiya, a musical directed by Mahendra Joshi. I think it was the first time I saw the piano being played live on stage. The actors were singing and I thought that was remarkable. I acted in a play called Mahim Ki Khadi, which had the most real characters on stage. I think that shook me. We always saw films on them, but when we saw those characters on stage, the reality hit even me. Then, I saw French travelling theatre company Footsbarn’s Romeo & Juliet and I thought the usage of puppetry, masks and music was a combination I had never seen before. It was raw, yet so imaginative Long ago, I saw a performance of Nana Patekar in the Marathi play Purush and that was terrorising. With senior actor Chandrakant Gokhale’s performance, I realised how an actor with just pure emotions and without using any gimmicks can hold the audience by just sitting and speaking. That was his strength as an actor. Lastly, watching Naseeruddin Shah in Einstein. You know Einstein in your memory but to see somebody like Naseer actually playing this character and creating an impact with his speech, is something to be seen.