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Playing tough
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Naseeruddin Shah talks about theatre
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MR. VERSATILE Actor-director Naseeruddin Shah
After three decades in the performing arts, the glint in Naseeruddin Shah’s eyes has not faded. He is attired in a loose, buttoned-down off-white kurta. He has a bandage around his neck with some fake blood smeared on it. The first performance
of Jean Anouilh’s adaptation of Sophocles’ political drama “Antigone” is just over at the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival 2007 in Bangalore.
It is the last play of the festival. Ranga Shankara teems with theatre enthusiasts, celebrities and those who have just come to catch a glimpse of the cast and request them for autographs. Naseeruddin nods at eager fans, who thrust papers under his nose, and he briskly signs them. “The crowd comes as no surprise. Bangalore has always been known for its theatre-lovers and theatre-productions. “I have been coming here since 1970 as a student of NSD and have performed various plays at Ravindra Kalakshetra.” He pauses and asks: “Is it still there?”
Own theatre group
Naseeruddin’s theatre group, Motley, was created along with theatre personalities Benjamin Gilani and Tom Alter 30 years ago. “‘Dear Liar’, stories in Hindustani by Munshi Premchand, Harishankar Parsai, Ismat Chughtai, Saadat Hasan Manto, Kahlil Gibran’s ‘Prophet’ and now ‘Antigone’ are some of the plays we keep performing.”
“Antigone” was written in 1942 by Jean Anouilh who was inspired by Sophocles’ play of the same name. “ It was to represent the struggle of the French Resistance Movement against the forces of the Vichy regime during the height of the Nazi occupation”. We are surrounded by neighbours such as Burma, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and others where totalitarian regimes suppress the voices of individuals.
“And Gujarat is another extreme case where there was a recent incident of an artist and his works being brutalised. I mean, they are now going to tell us what book to read or not to in our own house.” The actor starred opposite Sarika in “Parzania”, a film about a Parsi family affected by the Gujarat massacre, which released earlier this year.
The character he plays in “Antigone”, directed by virtuoso Satyadev Dubey, is King Creon. “We have to understand that ‘terrorists’ (in this case is the king) are also people with demons who have their sleepless nights for their own reasons.” About the number of amateur, slapstick theatre comedies being produced nowadays, he simply says: “To each his own. If people enjoy bedroom comedies and a few cheap, drunken dialogues delivered on a street, I can’t preach about what people should watch.” He affirms, “And as for me, I don’t go anywhere near it.”
The versatile artist said the recent plays he enjoyed watching were Vikram Kapadia’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Divya Jagdale’s “Bansuri”.
AYESHA MATTHAN
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