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TWO BUBBLY YOUNG ACHIEVERS UNLEASH THEIR THEATRICS
`An adult gets on your nerves'
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`The key is to treat them like adults' — Vivek
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THEY ARE young sprightly and well on their way in their careers, making the world their stage and the stage their world, even as their peers are still in college and grappling with what direction their lives will take. Vivek Madan quit college midway to do theatre and is now recognised as one of Bangalore's most promising young directors at 24. At 21, Arati Punwani, agile dancer-choreographer trained in kathak and kalari and jazz ballet, is a familiar instructor at the city's schools.
Arati and Vivek have often worked together in productions such as the famous musical Yavamajakka, and will be doing a theatre and dance workshop this week at Camp Yakaboo. Kids at heart themselves, it's no wonder they often work with children. They meet up for a quick chat before they start work, and leave BHUMIKA K. amused with their energy and expressions as they clamber up trees and monkey around in Cubbon Park.
Arati: (To us)Vivek's doing a play, In Times of War, and I'm looking forward to seeing it because the first time he got the script we read it at a friend's place. V: So am I.
A: The script's been happening for the Yakaboo workshop?
V: Yeah... I've sort of rewritten the Jungle Book in a street children's scenario.
A: I think that'll really work because there's a connection there, no?
V: Yeah, just wondering if I should retain Mowgli's name as it is...
A: I think you should.
V: Yeah? OK. So Mowgli is this rich kid who waltzes into the neighbourhood and wants to be a part of the gang of wolves — that's the street kids.
A: So it's got an Oliver Twist meets Jungle Book kind of feel.
V: Aah, yes. We've done a lot of work with kids, no?
A: Yeah, we've done every school play together, no? There was Bangalore International School, Vidya Niketan, Vidya Shilp, and NPS Koramangala.
V: It's crazy, ya!
A: But I love it! And I feel the younger ones are a lot more peaceful, though. The older children — they have to first like you, have to decide you are cool enough. Only then they'll they listen to you.
V: That way I don't have a problem. (Generally raises his collarless T-shirt and acts cool.)
Children vs. adults
A: An adult gets on your nerves. But children maintain their enthusiasm. It's just that they get tired quicker. There's only so much you can push and then you've got to let it go.
V: And the discipline is great. Very rarely do they come in late for rehearsal. They'll learn their lines like that (snaps his fingers).
A: Children are excited by challenge. You give them boring exercises and they get bored. They are quick to perceive and can't be fooled. You have to be on the ball with them.
V: The key is to treat them like adults. You treat them like children and you've lost before you've started.
A: Give them respect and they give it back to you.
V: With adults, you can give a script and they are capable of an interpretation of their own, but with kids you have to guide them throughout. A: But with children, if you work out rehearsals and exercise well, they are amazing. Kids, at the end of say a one-year workshop, are like professionals. Such focus.
Theatre scene
V: I was talking to Prakash Belawadi and he says with this generation there's a huge dumbing down; it's the age of anti-intellectualisation. There are on the one hand directors who work on the script and character and the history of the period, the psyche of the play. There are others who just pick up a play and do it. They don't have a conception of what the play depicts.
A: They don't understand it... because Vivek, like for us, we first did three-four years of being in everyone's plays and learning stuff before doing stuff on our own. You need the grown-ups to teach you which direction you need to go.
V: (Shakes his head vehemently in agreement) You need to climb up the ladder.
A: Yeah!! You can't just one day decide, `Hello I'm gonna do a play'. It just doesn't work. Both of us only directed when we had reached a point in our life when we felt I know, not a lot but enough, about plays. But a lot of people we're meeting now decide, `Today I'm a writer, today I'm a director'.
V: With the "younger ones" (quickly puts up his hands to suggest `quotes', quite realising he's also one of the tribe) it's an "in" thing to do a play. Unfortunately, the older generation is not really helping. They won't go out of their way to help a youngster. If asked, they give some support. To a certain extent. They just won't give the background in terms of infrastructure, knowledge or experience they have accumulated over the years. They are not that willing to pass it on, which is sad.
A: See, I think you have to ask for it. No matter who it is, no one's going to walk into anyone's rehearsal and say, `Now I'm gonna teach you what to do'. But if either of us were to walk up to Arundhati Nag or Arundhati Raja or whoever it is, tell them what you are doing, and ask, `How should I go about it?', they are never going to turn you away.
V: It's also the approachability. We've worked with them and we have a rapport with them. I don't know how it will be for others.
A boss at 20
A: The problem when you are working with friends is that it's the best experience and the worst. Because you chill together and go to movies together and suddenly when you come to rehearsal, they have to take orders from you. You have to be able to shut one window and open the next. Just depends on how you approach it and, at least for me, I've learnt it the hard way. I have to stop being their friend and start being their choreographer. And that's the only way it'll work.
V: That's about it actually. You work with people your own age, but I am forced to work with people older than I am. And who've invariably had more experience than me as actors, not as directors. So for me that's a different ballgame. There's always ego massaging. As far as I'm concerned, the entertainment industry is all about juggling egos. You have to make sure you don't rub them the wrong way. Even when it goes down putting credits on a ticket, you strictly stick to alphabetical order so you can justify it! It's not that the actors demand it. It's more my perception of their demand. But in my mind they are slightly above me and that causes this huge problem for me. 'Coz they can't be above me when I'm the director. It's my call and I have to take the decisions. It's finally my play.
Missing college
V: The only thing I miss about college is the camaraderie and friends. I lost touch with everybody.
A: It's always giving up a lot. I did my graduation in choreography and even then it was a small class of five people. I think you miss out on college life and bumming around in the canteen, doing nothing, and getting in trouble with teachers. It is a sacrifice but it's completely worth it. Because see, we are what... 23?
V: I'll be 24 tomorrow (With a sad face).
A: Yeah... 24 and 21, and we're on our way. . It's not like we're fresh out of college and starting out so all that others are gonna go through now, we've been through it — we've been cheated of money, taken for a ride, and now you've learnt and you're equipped.
V: But, like we've often talked about it, maybe we started too young.
A: Yeah, maybe... (wistfully)
V: (In a grandfatherly way) There also seems to be a lot of youth we've lost in our endeavour to get somewhere with our lives...
A: The pictures they (pointing to us) just shot don't seem to show it though!
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