World Theatre Day: Theatre veterans speak to WION on the power of the medium

On March 27, the world gets together to acknowledge the contribution of theatre and what the medium has given in many decades of its existence. Indian theatre artists like Saurabh Shukla, Dilnaz Irani, and Geetanjali Kulkarni speak to WION on World Theatre Day as they speak about their love for theatre, what it means for them and how it has adapted to changing ecosystem of entertainment.

Saurabh Shukla, who was last seen in Zee theatre's Khamosh Adalat Jaari Hai and is also a famous film personality equated the importance of theatre with life. He said, “As a theatrist, it has the same importance as life” and added that he includes audiences in the term “theatrist”. For Dilnaz Irani, “theatre offers more than what a drama school, academic studies, a workshop, or a film set can teach you. A theatre project gives you an experience that nothing else can match. It's not just the actual craft that you learn but also commitment, hard work, camaraderie and synergy that turns colleagues into your family.” Meanwhile, for Geetanjali Kulkarni, “theatre is very important because it's an organic medium of expression for humanity and it is the oldest form of telling stories. Even when language was not developed, through sounds, body language, expressions, and gestures, the human race always wanted to share their experiences and stories.” She added, “It is also very important in today's time because it channelises our emotions, it gives a way to our expression, questioning ourselves, society, the system, relationships, traditions. So I think that catharsis is needed for any society.”

Dilnaz Irani was seen in Zee Theatre’s Shireen Shah. She feels that out of all mediums, theatre is the most powerful of them all in tandem with cinema. “It really depends on the content. If the content offered by the theatre is great then yes, of course, it's going to be more powerful, but the same holds true for cinema as well. Much as I love theatre, and owe so much to my theatrical experiences, I still feel it would be a bit biased of me to choose only theatre above all other art forms.”

Saurabh Shukla, however, answered this differently. He explained with an example and said, “There's a wonderful sequence in a film called Fame by director Alan Parker where a student in an art school dabbles in different art forms. When he goes to dancing classes, he is told this is the best form of art. When he goes to drama classes, he is told that theatre is the amalgamation of all arts on one platform. And finally, when he goes to the music class, the music teacher says that music beats all other art forms. So, if I'm doing theatre, then of course for me, theatre is the highest form of art but the same holds true for poetry, music, dance, painting, and cinema. So whatever your chosen discipline is, it becomes the best form of self-expression.”

Without taking sides, Geetanjali said, “It (theatre) leaves an impact on the audience. I have worked with children, and to read and to write, we used theatre as a medium and it not only helps to connect with the audience. It creates that world and that world helps for catharsis. It leaves an impact. In fact, there are many studies that also say that theater has helped them in many different ways, helped people going through depression, and they've done theatre with criminals in jails and it has helped them. So I think it's a very good way of channelising your emotions.”

A prominent face in films and TV, Geetanjali is also a part of Zee Theatre’s Piya Behrupiya. On whether theatre gives more space for radical, feminist stories than cinema, she said, “It depends who does it, why you do theatre and where you do theatre— if you are doing political theatre if you're doing theatre for the community, then it can create space for questioning the system. Theatre is not an expensive medium, it is easier to do theatre, and it has the capacity to be more, to reach out to people without much investment, so financially, it is more viable. It has the power to reach out to communities. Cinema, because it's dependent on a lot of things, it is difficult to make a film. Theatre is more accessible, more viable, more available.”

On how theatre is adapting to the changing times, Dilnaz said, “I think the perfect example of how theatre as a medium is adapting and evolving to keep up with the changing times is Zee theatre. The fact that now a play can be recorded and is accessible to so many more people is incredible. Post the pandemic, people want to just sit at home and watch stuff and today Zee Theatre is beaming plays right into their living rooms.” As for Saurabh, he had a more philosophical answer to this. He added, “I'm not an analyst, so I'm not the right person to answer that. I'm a practitioner so I just keep living. It's like asking a human being how life has changed over a thousand years. You won't be able to figure it out. Yes, of course, you have history to refer to and of course, the evolution of life itself is based on change but only some historian or analyst can analyse the extent of that change accurately.”

Meanwhile, Geetanjali said, “It's a very simple and easy way of expressing and telling the story. It just needs one performer and one spectator and you do theatre, there is no need for anything else. So I think it is more important in today's time when we are very much dependent on technology and modern appliances.”

The artists believe that the medium of theatre “has survived because of its immediacy and potency. Theatre is a performing art, it's a medium of direct communication to the audience because the audience comes into theatre or into a space where theatre is being done and gets directly impacted, affected, and communicated to. An extremely effective and energized interaction happens between the audience and the actor.”

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