Email
Print
ShareMumbai: Three decades ago, in the 80s, theatre director Janak Toprani was one of the pioneers to popularise Hinglish theatre in Mumbai. And despite not-so-rave reviews from the critics, who Toprani says "didn't understand the genre," this form of theatre thrived in the city.
With commercially successful productions like Papa Don't Preach, Fights, Camera, Action and Divorce Me Darling, Janak directed theatre guns like Naseeruddin Shah, Rajit Kapur and Kitu Gidwani, many of whom who started their careers with him.
Despite vowing to never return to the theatre stage after having an "ugly" experience during the making of his last play Divorce Me Darling, the Fulbright andBritish Council scholarship winner admits that it was a young team and his friendship with actor Ashiesh Roy that brought him back to the stage.
He says, "Working for more than three decades on the stage, I felt that it was just not challenging enough to pursue it any longer, except that Wife Time Trouble was the only genre of play that I had not experimented with." The director promises the bi-lingual play is far from an average slapstick comedy, where humour is derived from language and real-life experiences.
Toprani confesses that the reason to experiment with commercial theatre was to "earn enough to survive and then earn a little more to put it into my other projects." He says, "I was a middle-class person and studied as much as I could. I was trained to be a CA. But while other people left their passions for their job, I did just the opposite."
So what was the reason behind agreeing to direct a comparatively newer cast in his latest play? Toprani says it is just his way to give back to the profession what he earned three decades back.
He points out, "I thought the same when Naseer agreed to be directed by a novice like me. He took a risk. It is easier to mould a person with your craft than making someone unlearn what has already been instilled."
