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Plumbing the silences
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Anupama Chandrasekhar says it’s the interactions between characters that interest her
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ROOTED IN THE FAMILIAR Anupama Chandrasekhar
I don’t know whether the Royal Court Theatre will produce my new play. But I’ll get paid nonetheless as they’ve commissioned me to write it,” she says with a naughty gleam in her eye.
To Anupama Chandrasekhar, 34, this means a whole year of freedom from financial concerns to concentrate on writing.
A luxury in India where writing plays remains a part time activity. “And I’m going to write three plays, not one,” she exults. “I’ve got to finish them before I get more ideas!”
Anupama’s association with RCT, London, began when she participated in a residency programme there as a Charles Wallace Fellow. Her “Free Outgoing” at RCT got sold out by the second week.
The play is set to shift to RCT’s main stage in London, and for a month’s run at Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe, 2008. Moreover, hadn’t RCT produced two of her short plays?
It was at a workshop organised by the Madras Players and the British Council, masterminded by Mahesh Dattani, that Anupama discovered play writing. Before that, as a literature student, she had been absorbed in poetry.
Nor had she watched many plays, recalling only Sujata’s Jannal and Manohar’s Lankeswaran by name. Her job in Businessline taught her precision.
A sense of guilt at not using all her potential (“Though I didn’t know what it was!”) made Anupama quit work for post-graduate studies in Stella Maris. “This guilt has diminished since I learnt who I am: a playwright.
Dreamless sleep is possible only after a physically and mentally taxing day of playwriting.”
Having read rather than watched plays she knew that she had to invest all her time and energy to acquire the craft tools essential for good playwriting.
She was happy to make that fulltime commitment because she was excited by dialogue. Interactions between characters offered scope for silences. “I’m a sub-texual writer,” she says.
Anupama directed her “Acid” for the Madras Players last year but admits that she has no natural flair for direction. “Only 5 per cent of a director’s work is creative.
The rest is about getting all your actors together in one space to start working. Exhausting! Will the actors work better if you pay them?”
Luckily she likes teaming with “another brain”, mentioning director Indu Rubasingam’s sensitivity in the RCT production of “Free Outgoing.” She is grateful for RCT’s liberating focus on the playwright’s rather than the director’s vision.
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
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Coimbatore
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Kochi
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Visakhapatnam
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