Following the successful staging of Lysistrata, Jagriti Theatre is now set to stage The Golden Dragon, as part of its ongoing theatre festival. A tragicomic tale of globalisation, set in your local Thai\ Chinese\ Vietnamese takeaway, The Golden Dragon— which will be performed by the Olivier Award winning Actors’ Touring Company (TCA) Touring Company, UK, at Jagriti Theatre — received critical acclaim at The Edinburgh Festival.

Written by the well-known German playwright Roland Schimmelphennig and translated by David Tushingham, “The Golden Dragon” is a theatrical fable that is placed within larger socio-economic issues of modern society and migration.

The play, in director Ramin Gray’s words, is “like looking down a telescope from the wrong end.” He hopes that the audience “will get a new, strange and wonderful perspective on how you see us Europeans looking at the world.”

Writing the script wasn’t a long-drawn out process, it happened quite naturally. “The play already existed and had premiered in Vienna in 2009. So we only rehearsed for four weeks in London before opening in Plymouth last April. Clearly the Company have been playing the show for some time now and there have been some good developments in the work over that time.”

Critics have observed that though the play deals with migrants, the cast is all-white. “The playwright asks the actors to make imaginative leaps as they take on roles that are distant to them in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and at times even species,” says Ramin.

“It’s clear from the writing that none of the actors should be playing ‘themselves’—by which I mean, a young white man shouldn’t be played by the young white actor. And so if we’d cast Chinese actors, at some point they would have been playing ‘themselves’ and that would have robbed the play of one of its key features, that the actors, like the audience, are encouraged to put themselves in the place of the distant other.”

There is an India link too. One of the cast members, 79-year-old Annie Firbank was born in India. This, as Ramin describes, is “a very special moment for us to feel we are taking Annie back home in a strange way. Of course her story of migration to England is totally different to the story in the play but nevertheless there is a sense in which she moved from one culture to another and it’s wonderful for us to travel back to India with her.”

All Ramin asks of the audience is “to bring your brain as well as your heart into the auditorium and be prepared to use it. Watch the actors carefully and be actively prepared to use your imagination to tease out all the ambiguities and possibilities in the strands of story that we lay out for you in the seventy minute traffic of our stage!”

“The Golden Dragon” will be performed at Jagriti Theatre, Whitefield, starting today till January 29, at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 and 6.30 p.m. No performance on Mondays.

Contact 9845373547 for details on shows for Colleges\High Schools (on Tuesdays and Wednesdays). Tickets, priced at Rs. 300, are available at Jagriti and www.bookmyshow.com.

by Sravasti Datta

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As Thespo 13 drew to a close on Sunday, it was a time to celebrate the best talent in theatre. The Thespo 13 Awards Nite — that marked an end to the six-day festival — was held at the NCPA Experimental Theatre. The evening started with Alyque Padamsee presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Arundhati and Jagdish Raja from Bangalore. The award acknowledged the Rajas’ undying passion for theatre and the fact that they had opened up the world of theatre to generations of young Bangaloreans — be it through their banner Artistes Repertory Theatre or the recent 200-seater Jagriti Theatre.

The night also saw four Marathi productions sweep the awards in various categories. Patient from the BMCC College, Pune, led the way as it won the awards for Best Outstanding Play, Production Design and Director (Suraj Parasnis). Cock by Mumbai-based theatre groups ClustalZ Mumbai and AllMyTea Productions, walked away with the acting awards for Lead Actor and Actress, won by Manish Gandhi and Asmita Bakshi, respectively. The award for New Writing went to Sunil Tambat and Aniket Patil of Ek Don Adhich, even as Janhit Mein Jaari’s Ashish Nasalapure tied with Patient’s Sidharth Mahashabde for the Thespo for Male Actor in a Supporting Role. These productions were judged by a panel comprising of theatre personalities Sheeba Chaddha, Meher Marfatia, Hanif Patni and Shashank Shende.

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Challenges in running a space 

We have — after 30 years of producing, directing, casting, acting and staging nearly 70 plays in almost all the venues around Bangalore and in others in Indian cities and even as far as London, England — suddenly been transformed from theatre practitioners to administrators and managers; looking at P&L statements, business plans and marketing!. The building took its time but, in the final analysis, this may have been destined: Jagriti at the end of its first year is functioning reasonably well. This may not have been the case a few years earlier. Jagriti has also won the Aces for Space Award 2011 as the best public space building for India!

Indian theatre vis-à-vis the West, today
Indian theatre (and here I mean Indian theatre in English language) differs in major ways. One, we are amateur; very few make a living from theatre, they subsidise it with earnings from work in TV and film or through regular non-theatre jobs. Most provincial (off London’s West End or off New York’s Broadway) theatres abroad are owned by a professional theatre company or on a long lease from the Municipal Council. Two, theatre companies abroad will employ full-time directors, designers, stage managers, publicists and marketing people as permanent staff with a generous team of interns who have graduated from drama schools (only the performers will come in and out with a touring play). Some may even have a writer-in-residence. In India, the venue on rent, (seldom as producer), will provide administrative and basic stage service personnel who are not involved with the production. Three, theatre in most Western countries receives some support from the state. It is part of an evening’s cultural entertainment — a cocktail, then the show, then dinner; or dinner before the show. Mumbai, is perhaps, the only city that offers a varied choice of theatre, to come close to this. Four, all these theatres will have a lucrative restaurant and bar attached. Jagriti does have The Fat Chef!

What’s working and what’s not!

What is going right is successful-play-repeated. A play becomes a commercial success. It is available, repeated, and gains popularity because of that prime ingredient — word of mouth testimonials. This means that the audience is transferring creative, critical information about a play that attracts others to see it. On the other side, mushrooming (that are there one day and gone the next) theatre companies stage bad material, badly performed and even more badly stage crafted. They get an audience of admiring friends, colleagues and family whose bias is obvious by the thunderous applause that the cast receives.

The rationale behind Jagriti’s ‘Season’

The Season concept is popular abroad, where the theatre is very much part of the community. It is the audience who support the theatre. They donate, even bequeath and attend regularly. Of course, the theatre is open to all and as the reputation grows people from outside the community also come to see quality theatre. This concept is new to us and needs nurturing, which we are doing. We are fortunate that we are in a very cosmopolitan community already.

Children’s receptivity to theatre
You treat children like some “other” persons. We, all of us, were children once. And didn’t we all playact as children? Have you forgotten — Office, Office; House, House; Hospital and Doctor; Cops and Robbers?! Jagriti has always been committed to training the young and old. And children and youth are keen learners. We have well over 100 candidates for the Trinity College London, Drama & Speech examinations every year.
Theatre for children is very much part of the Jagriti programming. But should parents bring children to plays not suited to them? No! It is unfair on the child, embarrassing for the parents, and a nuisance to others, both on and in front of the stage.

A trend I foresee 

Indian literature in English, both fiction and non-fiction is flourishing! We have staged plays by Girish Karnad, Gautam Raja, Ram Ganesh Kamatham and Mahesh Dattani. We staged seven plays by seven playwrights (five Indian and two Sri Lankan) following a workshop for writers and directors in association with the Royal Court Theatre (RCT) London and supported by the British Council. Anita Nair has written one play (Nine Faces of Being) adapted from her book Mistress. Anita has a play A Twist Of Lime as part of the Jagriti Season. Jagriti is dedicated to giving the Indian playwright a voice that is heard more clearly, more easily in appreciative communities around the world. All the things are in place to make it happen at Jagriti.

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It’s not that Bangalore has always been kind to theatre. But somehow the theatre lovers have always found a way to keep it alive — from a tangible perspective as well as getting people, sometimes even converting the philistines, to keep their faith in the arts alive.

On that note, Jagriti, one of the newest performing arts spaces in town, is welcoming their first theatre season. A pretty much one-of-a-kind event to be starting in India, the season, which starts on December 2 and runs through June, will see six plays of repute on the stage.

“One of the biggest advantages we have at Jagriti is that we are in a position to create our programme schedule and the concept of seasons in theatre doesn’t exist in India; so we are looking at six plays over six months. And what we have been able to do is come up with a brilliant collection of plays, starting with one that was written in 411BC!” says Jagdish Raja of Jagriti Theatre.

The play in question is Lysistrata by Aristophanes, which is being directed by UK-based Jeff Teare. A theatre professional for the past 40 years, Jeff has directed over 120 theatre productions with a gamut of genres under his hat. He was also the co-director of Theatresciene 2002-2011 and has handled productions, projects and workshops in the UK, India, Uganda, Argentina and Switzerland. “Lysistrata is a play that talks about something very relevant but in a funny sort of way. It’s about the war between Athens and Sparta, which is dragging needlessly, with all the young men dying and the older men getting rich. Lysistrata, who is the main character in the play, too has a husband who’s been away at war for long. What she does, pulling her sisters in, is go on a sex strike,” says Jeff, adding, “We’ve made a few changes of course — adding a more contemporary twist with a few Indian elements (specifically Bangalore) into the play. So, don’t be surprised if you notice someone who reminds you of a famous Page 3 person!”

Apart from Lysistrata, some of the other plays you can watch at Jagriti are The Golden Dragon by Roland Schimmelpfennig, directed by Ramin Gray, The Dreams Of Tipu Sultan by Girish Karnad and directed by Arundhati Raja, A Twist of Lime by Anita Nair, directed by Arundhati Raja and Shipwrecked! by Donald Margulies and directed by Cindy Meier. Tickets to the plays cost Rs300 per production and Rs1,500 for the whole season.

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These plays are in no hurry to let the curtains fall. Each lasts 18 days for a period of six months so you can feast on some wit and drama at Jagriti.

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This is the story of two Arundhatis, their husbands and their extraordinary passion for theatre. It is about theatres — Jagriti and Rangashankara — that the two Arundhatis built at the opposite ends of Bangalore, which today make for a vibrant, happening dramatic theatre scene in the city.

The spaces that the Arundhatis have built have so much in common. And yet they are very different, from the kinds of plays they stage right down to the cuisine in their respective open-air cafeterias.

You could say that Arundhati Raja and her husband Jagdish belong to “English Bangalore.” They lived in the downtown Convent Road for many years. They led a remarkably active and prolific life in English theatre for three decades with their Artistes’ Repertory Theatre. They have been theatre teachers, moulding many budding actors in the city.

The Rajas’ Jagriti opened in Bangalore’s Whitefield neighbourhood about a year ago, eight years in the making, and standing where their farmhouse once stood. With zeal and ardour, they had traded their share of the co-development for a theatre space, instead of bargaining for the standard “two penthouses”. That space is today turning out to be a gift to the community.

Located amidst an expanse of office parks and modern residential high rises, Jagriti mainly stages English plays, with occasional comedy evenings and music nights. The theatre seats 200. Ticket prices are upwards of Rs 250. “These days people think nothing of spending Rs 500 on a multiplex movie ticket,” says Raja, explaining that professional theatre and low-cost tickets do not work well together. An evening of theatre can be rounded off with a meal at Jagriti’s Fat Chef where wine and espresso are served alongside eclectic Continental cuisine.

While all this sounds romantic, anybody who has done the math has already figured that it will be hard for Arundhati Raja and her husband to make any ROI (return on investment) on the theatre they have built.

The Arundhati of the other story — Arundhati Nag — was an “outsider” who moved to Bangalore at the end of the 1970s when she married popular Kannada actor Shankar Nag. She lost him to a traffic accident some years later. You could say the theatre was a tribute to Shankar’s acting talent and a culmination of their shared dream for a space for regional theatre. From her farmhouse on the Hosur Road suburbs of Bangalore, Arundhati Nag built Rangashankara.

Rangashankara, now in its seventh year, is located in south Bangalore — which you could broadly term “Kannada Bangalore.” Arundhati Nag’s dream of building a theatre found support of every kind. The theatre came up on a government-allotted plot; and, as she ran around asking for donations, the S.M. Krishna government chipped in with Rs 50 lakh from its culture department. Despite such largesse, Nag says it took her 10 years to get the project finished.

Rangashankara today runs on a staff of 10, and has backers among leading Bangalore philanthropists including Sudha Murthy’s Infosys Foundation, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw’s Biocon Foundation and the city-based watchmaker, Titan Industries. Recalling the anxiety of the long years waiting to see Rangashankara launch, Nag says: “It is only madness that makes people build theatres.”

The bulk of Rangashankara’s offerings are in Kannada, though the theatre aspires to be a bridge between English, Hindi and regional language theatre. Tickets start as low as Rs 50 with a ceiling of Rs 200. Rounding off the Rangashankara experience is the homely Anju’s Café that serves everything from poha, sabudana vada and festive thalis.

Both Rangashankara and Jagriti are beautiful and lively theatre spaces that have been built on determination and grit. They are well-maintained and well-managed, a challenge of no mean dimension. Both hope to pull audiences back from the lure of television and the movies to the joy of live theatre. “They are ahead of their times,” says Prakash Belawadi, a Bangalore theatre figure who straddles both English and regional theatre spaces. “I hope they eventually get payback as measured by the support of theatre groups and audiences.”

saritha.rai@expressindia.com

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The great Laurence Olivier was asked in a radio interview if he could leave listeners, with a tip on acting. He said he could, he would in one word: “listen!” I have told my cast before they go on stage on opening night: “You have never uttered the words you are going to utter…and, most important, you have never heard the words you are going to hear.” I say the same thing on the next night and the next…this is after four to six weeks of rehearsal.

Theatre is playacting. It’s what children do as soon they make social contact. Remember “cops and robbers”, “office, office”; “nurse and doctor”. You do…good.

In the auditorium Darius Sunawalla and his old radio buddy Sumit Raja, informed, interjected, infuriated and teased one another and the audience through the course of the progarmme where Tara Kini sang a haunting invocation of four very appropriate Sanskrit slokas while Jagdish recited the English translation. The Jagriti kids had the audience in splits and in thrall with a series of sketches. Tara was back on the stage and sang a thumri to which Madhu Nataraj danced kathak. Shanti Rao on veena closed the performance. Then Darius and Sumit asked Sanjana Kapoor, Aru Nag and Yusuf Arakkal to set JAGRITI on its way with words of encouragement, support and praise.

Bangalore’s theatre couple were cheered on to the stage where they reminisced, thanked, and acknowledged the many who had extended their support. From Ray+Keshavan for the Jagriti face, to Yusuf to Ravee, the architect…and the scores of others. It was a joyous end to the evening.

Monday, 10 January:
When Anita Nair adapted her book Mistress for the stage, she asked Arundhati to look at and then cast and direct Nine Faces of Being. The play closed to a standing ovation on its first ever performance. The engagement will continue till 23 January.

The Fat Chef is just waiting to wait on you. Come on…give him a chance! You can have anything from breakfast to dinner across a range of vegetarian and non-vegetarian cuisines. The Fat Chef is tucked away behind the Jagriti.

January and beyond…

Remember the time you missed your favourite play because you had to travel out of town or had an exam or a cold. There could be a million reasons why it’s easy to miss a play in Bangalore, primarily because every show — new or old — only runs for a couple of days. If you’re really lucky, it could run for a week. Unlike, say London where a show has to perform for at least a couple of months to even merit a review.

The Lion King, for instance, has been performing non-stop for the last 12 years at Lyceum theatre. You couldn’t have missed it even if you tried!

If London can, why not Bangalore?

THE SEASON OF THEATRE
For the first time in India, Arundhati and Jagdish Raja, founders of Jagriti Theatre, have introduced a theatre season in Bangalore: six plays that will perform over six months, from December 2011 to January 2012. Each play will perform 18 shows, spreading over three weekends.

With most theatre companies in city struggling to find viewers even for a week-long show, it will be a challenge for Jagriti to run 18 shows continuously. The best thing about the season is that it has never been tried before and is an experiment that could create a trend, resulting in plays that may have longer runs.

GET A SEASON’S PASS
The plays that will be showcased during the season represent a wide range spanning Aristophanes’ Lysistrata to Anita Nair’s A Twist of Lime. What is interesting is that Jagriti is offering theatre-lovers a chance to watch all the six plays at a nominal price with a season’s pass.

“We always talk how difficult it is to sustain arts in India. We at Jagriti are looking for a way to sustain the arts with the participation of the audience. If you buy a season’s pass, you will be helping in sustaining the season, besides getting a chance to watch six great plays,” said Arundhati Raja at the launch.

For those with unpredictable schedules, individual tickets for each play will be available at a later date, at a premium price, and there is always a risk that the best seats in the house will be taken by season’s pass holders. The most expensive ticket are for the Friday-Saturday slot prices at Rs 4,200. Which is a steal, if you consider that you get to watch six plays, local and international for the price of a fancy meal in an upscale city restaurant. Weekday season’s pass comes at Rs 2,500 and Sundays at Rs 3,500. Individual tickets for each play will be available at prices starting from Rs 500 for a weekday and Rs 850 for the Friday-Saturday slot.

The plays for the season have been curated by Arundhati, who is also the artistic director of Jagriti, besides being a well-known performer herself.

LYSISTRATA’S ADAPTATION
Aristophanes’ Greek epic Lysistrata will be directed by British theatre director Jeff Teare. The Indian adaptation of Lysistrata, a play about a woman’s attempt to stop war by declaring a sex-strike, is both funny and relevant to our times. It explores what men want from war, and why they want it. And how women figure in it.

Lysistrata will feature some of Bangalore’s best-known theatre actors and will inaugurate the season. The Golden Dragon from the UK was both a critical as well as a commercial success at the Edinburgh fringe festival this year.

The Interview, written by Siddharth Kumar and directed by Akarsh Khurana, was the winner of several awards at META last year. The Dreams of Tipu Sultan is a revival of one of ART’s most successful plays, a historical costume drama, if it can be called that.

Written by Anita Nair, A Twist of Lime comprises three plays and three stories that are linked by irony.

The last play of the season is from the United States and is a Pulitzer prize winner and is performed in Carnival style. If you are a regular theatre goer, there’s reason to rejoice. Be sure to pick up the season’s pass before it sells out. If you’re not really a theatre fan, this is probably the best time to check out what the fuss is all about and get a real taste of the theatre, right here in your city.

What’s more, with Jagriti’s new initiative, next year you might not have to go to London to watch the Lion King.

At Jagriti, Whitefield, from December 2 to June 17. Call 9845547768

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