THEATRE
Drama at Prithvi
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As Prithvi Theatre celebrates its silver jubilee this year, GOWRI RAMNARAYAN talks to Sanjna Kapoor on its beginnings and its future.
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THERE are four persons to watch the play staged by a young group: actors Shashi Kapoor and wife Jennifer, their little daughter Sanjna, and a bemused viewer who has wandered into the empty hall. All four have bought tickets, though the theatre belongs to the Kapoors who had started it to perpetuate the memory of thespian father Prithviraj Kapoor.
"That was the situation in the late 1970s," says Dinesh Thakur, whose Ank has been a regular performer at Mumbai's Prithvi theatre through its 25 years of growth. "We had to print maps and bus routes on the tickets, go on door-to-door rounds, stand at traffic lights, use every tactic we knew to sell them. Dishearteningly, not only ticket buyers but even invitees did not always turn up at the shows." But Jennifer would come backstage to encourage, "Don't lose heart. Just you wait, people will come." Providing a much-needed platform for Hindi theatre was an obsession for her. The film star husband shared it, rushing back from shooting schedules in time for every play.
Luring audiences was a major concern. Jennifer would monitor the shows and insist on professionalism. "No half-baked experiments," smiles veteran Satyadev Dubey. She encouraged Thakur to put up catchier plays with sound values, so that audiences would come to see Anouilh's "Antigone" or Tendulkar's "Kamala" in the same theatre where they enjoyed a rollicking "Hai Mera Dil". Finally, Ank's "Baki Itihas" (Badal Sircar), which had opened to four viewers (1978), drew a full house (1982).
But having arrived, Hindi theatre had to weather tougher challenges — weekend films on the small screen, colour television, cable/video/DVD threats. Luckily, the tediousness of TV soaps drove viewers back to the theatre in the mid 1990s, though more to mindless farces and sex comedies.
Prithvi Theatre has persevered to widen its goals and reach. International and multi-lingual Indian productions are part of its annual festivals now. It promotes exchange through seminars, workshops, and face-to-face encounters. Shows are no longer confined to its own space, but extend to other venues, other cities. Except on Mondays and during its month long renovation, the theatre has daily shows through the year.
Many institutions fail to survive after their founder's lifetime. But son, Kunal Kapoor, worked with Feroze Khan to keep Prithvi going. Sanjna Kapoor came officially aboard in 1990. She had virtually grown up in the theatre "putting up posters, finding odds and ends, stringing flowers..." Sanjna was fired by her mother's vision.
Disturbed by the deterioration in audience tastes, Sanjna's five-point plan began with setting up a children's wing. Summer workshops (six-16) from 1991 progressed into annual festivals by the Little Prithvi Players. "We don't aim at making actors out of children, nor are we a casting agency! It's a selfish motivation, oriented towards creating an audience for tomorrow."
Realising that ambience plays a vital role, she held brunches for artists and buyers when shows opened at the Prithvi art gallery. The cafe rejuvenated itself into a major draw, especially for the young. A kiosk sells theatre books ("What we need is a library," she sighs). The well-edited Prithvi newsletter records much more than theatre activities.
The mother's ambition was to maintain a repertory. The Prithvi Players made a beginning with three English productions. "Gaslight" — the last play directed by the 84-year-old thespian Geoffrey Kendall, Jennifer's father — was a resounding success in the city and on tour. "His speech wasn't clear and he got terribly bad tempered if people did not understand him," chuckles Sanjna who was on the show. "But he was always bad tempered anyway so that was quite in form." A Hindi adaptation of Peter Brooks' "Conference of Birds" was abandoned after the death of director Mahendra Joshi, a close associate in the Prithvi adventure.
Finances posed the thorniest problems, leaving Sanjna in tears. Ad hoc, event-based solutions were no answer. Fortunately, in 1997, she found a sponsor who wanted a long-term relationship. No glaring banners, the Prithvi team has found aesthetic ways of promoting the cellular service provider. The narrow lane leading into Prithvi theatre is lined with orange lanterns. What looks like part of the design on invitations, tickets and cafe coasters is an advertisement for Max Touch Orange. This method has become as much a role model as the beautifully designed theatre (200 seats), which makes optimal use of space to create a warm, intimate comradeship. Interestingly, its performance area had been rehearsal space for Prithviraj Kapoor.
Though Sanjna believes that the first theatre festival (1983) organised by her mother is still the best, the theatre's annual festival has become a glitzy national event. International productions are a huge attraction but so are plays in languages from Manipuri to Malayalam. Press support is generous. When the festival spread beyond their Juhu home into street squares and community centres, occasionally to Pune and Delhi, publicity schemes had to be smarter, a learning experience.
Prithvi theatre has always encouraged youth. "We try to control quality round-the-year," Sanjna explains. "Not possible unless she revives in house production," says Dubey while agreeing that Prithvi has the best space, facilities and rates for the struggling actor. In catalysing serious theatre culture, Prithvi's platform performances have played a unique part. This is a half hour slot for experimental work, staged at the theatre's entrance before each show. "Not for street theatre or sloganeering which have their own space. This is for creative expression." Sanjna regrets that young people take too much for granted, and refuse to look at alternate spaces like terraces, classrooms and yards anymore. "In the initial years we got no audience at all but performances were spectacular. Now groups perform poorly if the house is not full. A pity, because I think people are tired of seeing hackneyed stuff. I've seen a tremendous drop in audiences, but now they are coming back, more open to experiment. This is a crucial time for organisations like Prithvi or the National School of Drama to concentrate on long-term strategies to promote good theatre." Adds Thakur, "Impossible unless actors stop being frivolous and casual, seeing theatre merely as a stepping stone to television and cinema."
In her last year at Prithvi Theatre, Jennifer Kapoor had continued to work through ill health surviving on "ardour and apple juice". When she died of cancer in England her injunction was that "the lights at Prithvi must not be switched off".
Though Jennifer Kapoor is no longer there to break the coconut and light the lamp before every festival, her team has kept her torch aflame. The show goes on through every knock and bump. The theatre celebrated its silver jubilee (November 1-12) with the same commitment that made it emerge as a pygmy presence in a remote corner of a huge city, where now it is a landmark.
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