This article is included in the book.
The Making of a Play
In our years at IIT, we developed
several bonds. The strongest bonds were among those who belonged to the same
department, and even more so, among those staying in the same hostel. It so
happened that more than half the Metallurgical Engineering students from our
batch were put up in Hostel 7. Naturally, it was a close-knit group that shared
common concerns, issues and ideas.
Our final year arrived and it was
our last chance to win both the sports and the cultural trophy for our hostel.
Tushar Pitale, our social secretary and an enthusiastic member of our group,
approached me with the suggestion that we do something for the inter-hostel
dramatics competition. We could present a one-act play in English, Hindi or
Marathi. Obviously, we could not let go of such an opportunity. We did not say
it explicitly, but we knew that Tushar would produce the play and I would
direct it.
We immediately started thinking
about potential actors. Of course, both of us could act in it as we had done
the previous year. Being seniors, we could even summon freshers for various
roles. But there had to be a reasonable match between the available talent and
the requirements of the play. That ruled out plays with female characters. It
was just one of the drawbacks of straying in a boy’s hostel. Even otherwise, it
was not easy to find a script that was just the right one for us.
That gave me an idea. Why not
write a play myself? That would be the perfect solution. I could create
characters based on specific students in the hostel who agreed to act. Tushar
supported my idea wholeheartedly.
I immediately talked to Kanchan
Nijasure, who was the editor of Tantra, a Marathi magazine of the students’
gymkhana. He had written a short story on a political theme. We agreed that I
could develop the play loosely around the theme of his story. We discussed the
changes required to present the story on the stage and debated the need for
several characters.
We still needed more seasoned
actors to make the play interesting. Tushar took it upon himself to convince
Milind Deshpande, a born singer, actor and a mimicry artist, to join the cast.
Milind could not say no to Tushar because as residents of Hostel 7, we had our
meals together, and walked together to the labs and lecture halls. In the classrooms,
we chatted, cribbed, dozed off, scribbled notes, passed on jokes written on
small chits, and at times paid attention to what the professor was saying.
Milind had to agree because the pride of the hostel was at stake.
I started writing. Since I was
also going to be the director, I decided to recite the prologue and the
epilogue myself. That would allow me to observe others during the rehearsals.
The main characters took shape around the other three actors, Tushar, Milind
and Kanchan. I did not want to show others a half-baked product, so the only
progress report I gave them was about the number of pages written. Their
curiosity and anxiety increased each day. Just as the atmosphere in our hostel
wing was getting charged up, we got an unexpected bonus.
Amol Gokhale, who had a clear
voice, was impressed with our efforts and told me that he would act in any role
we offered him. We knew that he would be a good actor. Given his height, his
personality on the stage would be quite imposing. It was just that he had
refused to act in our play earlier because of a self-imposed embargo on acting.
With Amol on board, it became almost an exhilarating experience to write the
rest of the play. I even introduced a new major character half-way through the
play. Availability of three or four reliable actors opened up many new
possibilities. Tushar would portray the idealist. Milind was supposed to
deliver the cruelly pragmatic dialogues of an unscrupulous mind. Amol could add
some punch as an unrestrained tyrant.
It was good that there were no
distractions like the internet, mobiles, DVDs or the cable TV in those days.
Yes, it was a pain to write by hand to make copies of the script. Looking back,
it seems almost like a pre-historical era without PCs, printers or photocopying
machines. I remember using carbon paper while writing. Finally I announced that
the script was ready. While we were getting ready for the rehearsals, we had to
come up with a good name for the play. We had a brainstorming session to
finalise the name. We wanted a name that reflected our science and technology
background. We settled for ‘Udvalayaache Marg’ or ‘The Hyperbolic Path’.
The rehearsals made us spend many
evenings together for a common cause. There was hardly any budget for
stagecraft as the hostel budget had already been spent on annual functions. We
decided to present the play in a modernistic way where simple props such as
wooden blocks and poles would depict everything from the streets to the palace.
In the play, the tyrant asked an ideologue to justify his actions. Ajit Mhatre
drew a Chaplinian caricature of the ideologue on a poster and pinned it on the
backdrop. We got someone to play the flute for the background score. We enjoyed
the team effort that went in to produce the play.
The final presentation of the
play was at the Lecture Theatre, an auditorium with a small stage and a seating
capacity of 450 people. In inter-hostel competitions, no one put in a lot of
effort when it came to costumes and makeup. But Amol managed to get a suit and
modified his eyebrows with kajal. He looked astonishingly like a tyrant. The
friendly audience enjoyed the dialogue and appreciated our efforts.
The play did not fetch us any
points for the cultural trophy. But our efforts to stage the play itself had
given us the best trophy. It reinforced our friendships.
Vivek V. Govilkar
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