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From Chennai to the Barbican
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Sama Swaminathan was a mine of information about English theatre
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STAGE, HIS WORLD Sama Swaminathan
"Don't gulp your ice cream, the play cannot start until I give the signal," laughed Sama Swaminathan, during the interval in the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC) "As You Like It", at the Barbican theatre, London. His assurance came from the fact that he was the manager of that theatre.
The dapper, ever-smiling Sama had come a long way from his native Nagapattinam. But he carried the shrewdness of his clan across the ocean. How else could he have made history by being the first to get corporate sponsorship for the RSC?
Serendipity lured Sama from The Mail, and later, the British Council, Madras, to the London theatre scene. When Robert Newton and Peter Coe came to the city to direct "Othello" and "Twelfth Night", the Madras Players repertory was born, and Sama, a founding member, changed tack to study stage management with veteran Bernard Miles in London. "I'm going to make some reparation for Britain's two centuries' exploitation of India by giving you a sound training, starting with the kitchen," Miles announced. To Sama's relief, "kitchen" turned out to be the box office.
When the Mermaid Theatre opened in 1959, it had Sama, dressed as an Indian prince, running onto the stage to welcome the actors and the audience. To the eager Indian trainee, each day brought lessons, and greater bonding with the theatre folk. They, in turn, realised that his modest and affable exterior hid a rare business sense, people skills, and a rarer passion for artistic excellence.
The bard did not come to Sama from book or classroom, but as an audio-visual experience, in what he unabashedly claimed was the `best theatre company in the world' — the RSC. Shakespeare became an obsession. When I wanted to see Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" at the Barbican's "Pit" theatre, Sama remonstrated, "Blood, gore and sensation".
Many stories to share
Sama's raconteuring made contemporary British theatre history come alive. Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Tom Stoppard, Peter Hall, Peter Brook or Judi Dench, were all drawn from personal experience. "A glass of `something strong' up in my seventh floor office room was sure to calm their nerves before the show," he laughed. He never forgot Dame Peggy Ashcroft's taking him to see plays, and later Trevor Nunn's unshaken confidence in the Indian manager who served the RSC for over twenty years. He would chuckle as he recalled Harold Pinter's constant complaints about everything from the seats to the creaking doors. His friends remember how he loved to take them not only to good plays, but also on exhaustive tours of famous theatres. Once backstage, you could be introduced to Charles Dance, Simon Callow or Trevor Nunn.
When Sama died in London at age 77, on the same day (14 July) his brother Saravanabhavan passed away in Chennai. Sama had long retired from work, but not from the world of theatre, or the excitements on foyer and stage.
His home was lined with books, but his most thumbed reading material was the weekly page listing the plays in London.
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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