Patni’s postures

 Actor Hanif Patni was stumped by Nadira Babbar's request to perform complicated yoga postures on stage.

Her colleague of several decades, actor and theatre group Ekjute’s manager Hanif Patni blames the constant spotlight as the reason why Nadira Babbar prefers to keep a grave face in public.

He agrees that it is one of those intimate moments within the group when she breaks into a smile and asks others to join in. Patni says, “She is quite different when she is not in public. She heads the theatre group, so often she prefers to keep a serious face.”

But directing comedies is what brings Nadira into herelement, vouches Hanif, talking about their play Yamraj Ji Kuch Kariye that marks Nadira’s return to Comedy of Errors’ after more than a decade. Patni says, “It’s been 12 years since we last did Dario Fo’s Trumpet And Raspberries.” The rehearsals of Yamraj provided the entire team with ample opportunities to crack up on the stage.

For one, Patni confesses he has a rather stiff body and was stumped when Nadira asked him to fulfill the role of a hermit who is a scholar of yoga sciences. He laughs as he admits, “I have absolutely no knowledge about yoga. Finally I had to invent some random yoga postures and pass them off on stage as authentic.” With a pause he adds, “Luckily, the audience wasn’t discerning and I didn’t get caught. I was often left quite numb in my legs after particular scenes.”

The actor points out that the theatre group has taken quite a few liberties in staging the play that has been adapted from a 14th century script in Sanskrit. For one, after translating the play into Hindi, the language has been further simplified keeping in mind the taste of the average Hindi theatre enthusiast in Mumbai. Interestingly, the play has several scenes of shock value — a priest mouthing seductive dialogues and trying his hand at romance.

While Patni says that the play borrows from Bharata Muni’s Natyashastra in style and technique, he also admits that the group takes a few liberties in its norms set for theatre. Patni points out, “Natyashastra bars you from showing a dead body on stage. We had to alter a few rules here and there.”