God's Little Soldier marches to German stage

A year after being awarded the Order of Merit, Germany’s highest civilian honour, Mumbai-based author, playwright and novelist Kiran Nagarkar’s novel God’s Little Soldier (GLS) or Gottes Kleiner Krieger in German, premiered on Saturday as one of Germany’s most lavish productions ever. The Bollywood-style musical has been put together by the iconic Theater Freunde Freiburg, Theater Oberhausen and the Goethe-Institute.

The three-and-a-half-hour long production with 20 actors and 30 dancers premiered on Saturday at the Freiburg Theatre on the German-Swiss-France tri-border. The final dress rehearsal took place on Thursday and Friday with Nagarkar in attendance. Director Viola Hasselberg and the author spoke to dna exclusively about the mammoth production.

Hasselberg said she was gripped by the story of extremism and religious fanaticism when Nagarkar first read from GLS at Frieburg in 2006. “Zia, the Faust-Mephistopheles mix, who converts from Islam to Catholicism while dabbling with Hinduism, fascinates us.

His brother Amanat, who is full of doubt and praises life as the only God worthy of worship as seen in his unsuccessful authoring of The Weaver while getting by in the big bad world of Bollywood, has his own attraction,” she points out. “This seven-year long project is the most intensive preparation in the history of Theater Freiburg,” she adds.

In this adaptation, the challenge of extremism in times of globalisation is debated in the form of a colourful Bollywood saga, which is dramatically realised by an orchestra of six with Indian and European instruments, the exceptional dancer-choreographer Aakash Odedra and a 30-strong dance ensemble of Freiburg citizens.

 “On one hand, there is the complex subject of extremism in a world of globalisation and capitalism. On the other, there is delightful humour and the world of Bollywood and a portrait of ‘life,’ which has a strong realistic atmosphere and gives me, as a reader and spectator, a sense of positive theatrical power,” explains Hasselberg’s fellow director Jarg Patacki.

“We resolved this dilemma by inventing a new form. We mixed scenes of classical acting with narration, which is accompanied by a live orchestra and interspersed some spectacular choreography for 45 dancers and actors. I believe this production will appeal to the hearts of our spectators.”

But it wasn’t always smooth and easy. Nagarkar remembers resisting the idea of Zia’s alter-ego (played by Odedra) at first. “I wondered why there was a need to create a character not there in the book, till I actually saw Odedra perform. The energy with which he articulates the realm of Zia’s unspoken thoughts through dance just took my breath away.”

So is the musical coming to amchi Mumbai? “After all, that’d be the logical thing to do given its context in terms of content and the Bollywoodisation in terms of form,” laughs Nagarkar. The sentiment’s shared by both Hasselberg and Patacki, who are exploring potential tie-ups and logistics for the same.