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ShareMumbai: Think acting -- film or theatre -- and one of the first names that comes to your mind is 'Naseeruddin Shah'.
If all the world's a stage, then this 'player' has performed his several entrances and exits with seamless ease in the different mediums he has assayed. But, so great is his love for the real physical stage that his passion for drama burns all the brighter 30 years after he and a few close friends formed Motley Productions.
So it is that Naseer is currently immersed in preparations for the 30-year celebrations of the group along with Akash Khurana, Benjamin Gilani and Ratna Pathak-Shah. (Tom Alter and Roshan Taneja too had been a part of Motley when it started.)
July 29, 1979: Motley Productions staged its first theatrical offering, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.
Circa 2009: One Friday evening, Naseer is found in the hall of a suburban school, rehearsing. The Shah of Drama is giving directions to the female lead. His voice is soft, barely audible at the far end of the room: "Your body posture should indicate what Nanhi has grown up into". The interaction between the young actress and her much senior director during the rehearsal for one of Ismat Chughtai's stories about Nanhi and her naani gives shape to the performance.
Soon, he gets into the act along with Benjamin and Akash. Actor Randeep Hooda too joins the veterans in their rendition of scenes from Beckett's masterpiece.
Naseer recollects how it all began: "The first play that Motley put up was Waiting for Godot, but since our company was yet to be registered at that time, the first performance was actually done under the aegis of Om's (Puri) short-lived theatre group, Najma."
Ask Om Puri about his friend's presence in theatre and the actor replies, "Naseer has created a niche for himself by adapting short stories on stage. He has been consistent in theatre for the last 30 years. He and his group have also been discovering new talents in theatre. I personally envy him."
It's back to Beckett and Naseer, who plays Pozzo, continues, "When we started off, we did not look beyond the first production. Benjamin and I were having a meal in Lucknow while we were shooting for Junoon. He wondered aloud why we couldn't form a theatre group. Before that, I had performed in a couple of plays with Satyadev Dubey's group and for Om's Najma. And when we got rolling, we toyed with the idea of doing Godot. I had studied it in my third year of drama school and had not been able to tune into it at all. In fact, (Ebrahim) Alkazi had said it was all rubbish. It was only after we rehearsed for a year that the play began to make sense."
Naseer's passion for theatre is enduring. "I enjoy theatre much more than films," says the actor. "I would have probably done more theatre if it had been possible. I am getting bored of films now."
Naseer picks his own favourite productions from Motley. The first is naturally Waiting for Godot. "In fact, at one point, all our sons had played the boy in the play. We kept running out of boys to play the role as the actors grew up." The second all-time favourite is Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. The third he says would be Ismat Apa Ke Naam, 'one of the most inexpensive plays to be performed the most around the world'. Another play that he truly enjoyed producing was Julius Caesar. "It was challenging and great fun. It had an unprecedented cast of about 70 people ranging from age seven to 73. Unfortunately, it met with neither critical nor popular acclaim."
He has worked with and enjoyed working with several directors. Top of his list are Ebrahim Alkazi and Satyadev Dubey. "The class and sophistication of Alkazi is impossible to match," says Naseer. "And Dubeyji's passion for theatre and sheer genius is incredible. He has an uncanny sort of perception for drama."
Living with someone he works with often on stage, Naseer cherishes his interaction with Ratna. "We spend a lot of our quality time together rehearsing, even at home."
From the past to the future... any plays that Naseer would see himself doing now? "I would like to do Man of La Mancha. It is a musical and I would really love to try my hand at something like that. Theatrically speaking, I would also like to do a Shakespeare play again. But it would be a nightmare to stage as it is difficult to find so many actors to play the roles. The command over spoken English of that quality is fast disappearing. Then there is Inherit the Wind, a 1950s play that I would like to stage... I have sworn off realistic plays; they are a headache to do."
Akash Khurana puts the 30 years into perspective, "It's been a great journey -- filled with learning and a feeling of belonging to a family. We took one thing at a time. And from Shaw to Shakespeare and Beckett, we have done it all."
The lack of planning or 'ball gazing' as Akash put it, is endorsed by Benjamin Gilani. "Naseer had no ideas and I had no ideas about how we were going to take things ahead," he recalls. "We were friends and respected each other." That's what mattered.
Motley has come to be identified with out-of-the-box productions. Ask director/writer Rahul da Cunha, and he says, "Naseer's finest performance on stage for me is his portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi in Feroz Khan's Mahatma vs Gandhi. He is unquestionably the finest actor that India has ever produced but vitally, in spite of his awesome talent, he is still questioning and hungry to improve, something that is very rare in this cocky, arrogant world of ours."
Part of the Motley Festival in July is a Dastangoi performance by Mahmood Farooqui, Danish Husain and of course, Naseer -- they will be staging Dastane Amir Hamza.
"Dastangoi," says Mahmood, "is a form of story-telling prevalent in Urdu. They are a cycle of stories that revolve around Amir Hamza -- and are filled with a variety of elements like fantasy, magi, trickery, ishq.... It is pure entertainment and two actors are on stage, telling the stories."
And so the curtains rise again and the cycle of Motley acts goes on....
