God reads this column
ON STAGE
| Remember, I had said theatre needs corporate/ business entrepreneurs to make it a professional venture. And god sent Sanjeev Chopra to form NATWA - an association of artists and a corporate honcho with a passion for theatre - that promises to provide meaningful theatre and pay its actors and the team! |
| The payment part might seem normal to all of you who believe that all professional activity is done for payment, and a handsome amount at that. Well, you are wrong. Theatre-practitioners, mind you trained, professional practitioners, belong to that prehistoric era of cultural dinosaurs who do theatre because they have a passion for it. |
| Not only do they not get money for it but put their own money to be able to produce the play. Ask me! All my CPF savings go in directing and producing plays. |
| Actors, the backbone of any theatre performance, just do not get paid for serious theatre. (Being on stage and getting audience applause is considered compensation enough, never mind the time and energy they put into a performance!) |
| In any case, with so many actors in any given play - who is going to spend their provident fund money paying 10-20 actors? No, they have to do it for free if they are committed theatre artistes! Even a rich sponsor can't possibly pay all the actors. |
| The backstage technical team are grudgingly paid a (generous) Rs 500-1,000 for at least a fortnight's involvement. Directors, of course, do not need payment because it is their need to do a play , and the whole hangama is because of them. Why should they expect payment? |
| Apart from just the payment, since the desire to stage a play often originates from the director, the whole enterprise is considered to be his/her baby, and he/she is, therefore, required to take on the entire organisational and financial responsibility. |
| Some of it may entail looking for a rehearsal space, persuading actors to agree to work without payment, booking the auditorium, looking for sponsors (only to be refused, of course), arrange for refreshments for the team, arrange for script copies for everyone, keep accounts of daily expenditure, call up the critics and audience, write for and design the brochure (by coaxing family or friends to pitch in, if possible). |
| In all this, where is the time for the artistic work of conceiving and directing the play? Well, too bad, find the time. The show has to go on. |
| Now you probably understand why people like me dream that there is someone - an enthusiastic, resourceful and mad someone - who will take on the task of making theatre viable and leave the director and the creative team to concentrate on the play. |
| So, hail NATWA! It promises to divide the tasks taken to mount a play among its members in a professional manner, and also pay the team commensurate with their work and talent. Already, one can see the difference. |
| Never before has a Hindi play been written about in all the English national dailies the way Othello, its first production, was talked about lately. |
| All this thanks to Sanjeev Chopra who has decided to put his corporate experience behind serious theatre work to make it a viable venture. This is a very promising beginning for professional theatre in the region. |
| Secretly, I am jealous that this did not happen to me! |