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Backstage to the front
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Seasoned playwright Reoti Saran Sharma shares his thoughts on theatre
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Reoti Sharan Sharma
Plays should be able to generate audiences, not money.” It is not often that one hears such calls in these days of crass-commercialisation of mass culture. No wonder these words come from one of the veterans of Hindi and Urdu theatre, Reoti Saran Sharma, who has been conferred Sangeet Natak Akademi award for 2007 for his contribution to Hindi theatre (dramatic literature and performance). Sharma recounts his long and chequered career as a playwright and theatre organiser.He was the pioneer in radio plays in All India Radio. Writing since the 1940’s, he has written over 150 radio plays which were broadcast by Akashwani in the national programme, and some of them were translated into all the Indian languages. Having been among the earliest theatre personalities to found an amateur theatre company in the national capital in post-Independence India, Sharma was also hand-picked by Kamladevi Chatopadhyaya. She made him take over the reins of the Bharatya Natya Sang in 1974, which is now the Indian chapter of International Theatre Institute (ITI).
Apart from writing in Hindi and Urdu for the stage and AIR, Sharma has been one of the first and very successful television playwrights too. His serials like Phir Wahi Talaash and the Great Maratha among many others have become household names.
However, Sharma is disappointed with the contemporary amateur and experimental theatre in India. “Mainstream and popular theatre have been ignored; though it is that which provides bread and butter to the actor.” . He feels that in the name of experimentation, theatre has lost its popular appeal. “We can’t make people laugh. Plays should give them something for laughing and weeping. What we have now is a disembodied theatre.”
The author of stage plays like Na Dharam Na Iman, Deepshikha, and
Andhere Ka Beta had also campaigned against pricing of theatre tickets and censorship of dramatic scripts. At the twilight of a long career, he feels that the dramatist is being ignored, “NSD and others, in the process of imparting theatre training, have exiled the author,” he concludes.
SANJAY KUMAR
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