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Playing multiple roles
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Jaimini Pathak, actor-writer-director, feels there is no sense in deciding the target audience and tailoring the production accordingly
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Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.
Back lights People who come to a theatre performance are not passive viewers, says Jaimini Pathak
With piercing eyes, a strong jaw and the quintessential rugged look, Jaimini Pathak falls easily into the mould of the “thinking actor”. To fit him into the stereotype, however, is to do this young actor, director, producer and writer a g
reat injustice. After all, as competent an actor as Jaimini is, it is the work he does behind the curtains that truly distinguishes him from so many of his compatriots.
Since the founding of his theatre group Working Title in 1999, Jaimini has produced and directed some truly interesting productions, the latest being an English and Hindi adaptation of Chandrashekar Kambar’s “Thukra’s Dream” (Thukrana Kanasu).
Satire
“The play has a startling use of satire, irony and wit. It has a movement of its own and you can see it at many levels,” he explains. “It takes the traditional folk format and subverts it; it says a lot of things that you wouldn’t expect from a folk musical.” The quirky, lesser-known Kambar play is typical of the kind of work that Working Title indulges in with both its original and adapted work; where you “discover the play as you work on it. It is so much fun to work on something new and unusual. It’s like breathing life into it, creating history.”
Of course, Working Title has done its fair share of classics, including Anton Chekov’s “Seagull”. The key, clarifies Jaimini, is to find classics that enrich one as a theatre person. “They have to teach us something. It’s not so much about us doing them as it is about them doing us.”
In the intervals between those classics, however, Working Title has produced impressive pieces such as “3, Sakina Manzil” and the Gandhi study that is synonymous with Jaimini, “Mahadevbhai”. The latter approaches the Mahatma from the perspective of his secretary Mahadevbhai, as recorded in the latter’s personal diaries.
“‘Mahadevbhai’ has been a great journey. I broke boundaries as an actor, producer, and human being. I performed under a tree, in a temple, in a theatre, under 40 lights and under one light. Being on the road with that play has been such an eye opener.”
One of the primary lessons the play has taught him, points out Jaimini, is that there is no sense in deciding one’s target audience and tailoring the production accordingly.
“Of course, there are certain plays that work for certain audiences. But we shouldn’t be limiting ourselves.” Talking directly to the audience was also a refreshing experience, one that Jaimini carried over to his first attempt at scriptwriting “Once Upon A Tiger”, which incorporated elements of Forum theatre. “I realised how much people want to be stimulated. People who come to watch a theatre performance are not interested in being passive viewers. We have a desperate need to communicate and so do they.”
Listening to Jaimini, one wonders how someone so interested in the nuances of storytelling could work in a medium as rigidly formulaic as television. But, counters Jaimini, “when I was doing TV, there were many good writers and directors. And once Working Title kicked off, I couldn’t find the time to do television. But even if I did television today, it would be as an actor. The money has to come from somewhere. And acting is an amoral job, unlike directing or writing. You have to be whoever you’re supposed to be.”
To the big screen
Just when one is dismissing that explanation as simple rationalising, Jaimini comes back with: “The money is never as interesting as what you do with it,” adding that he produces all of his plays. Meanwhile, Jaimini is also moving onto the big screen again, this time appearing in Subhash Ghai’s next film “Black and White”. And as if acting, directing and producing isn’t enough, he’s back at the writing table. “But the script will probably take some time because I am not a prolific writer. I can manage the director’s concentration, the actor’s concentration and the producer’s concentration, but struggle with the writer’s. I need more discipline.”
RAKESH MEHAR
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