MANOJ REGALES theatre Aficionados
At the International drama festival in National school of drama, students met Manoj Bajpayee and talked to him about censorship, role model and the road to being an actor
On the eighth day of 19th edition of National School of Drama’s International Drama Festival Bharat Rang Mahotsav, five plays were performed including Y Sadananda Singh’s non-verbal play ‘Love Your Nature’; Shyamal Chakraborty’s bengali play ‘Shekal Chhenra Hater Khonje’; D. Elumalai’s tamil play ‘Draupadi Vasthirabaranam’; Sunil Shanbag’s multi-lingual play ‘Loretta’; and a multi-lingual foreign play, Deborah Merolas’ ‘Anna in the Tropics from Nepal.’
The International drama festival witnessed the presence of famous theatre and film actor, Manoj Bajpayee. The actor met with students and theatre lovers at the NSD Lawns during interface, under a new initiative by National School of Drama where famous personalities from the theatre and film meet and interact with the students. Giving the mantra for a successful career to theatre aspirants, he said, “I follow a discipline in my life. An aspirant’s morning should start with rehearsal and not complaint. However it is basically your upbringing that makes you a person and an actor different from others.” Answering a query on the limits of theatre and cinema, he replied, “Censor board is so undemocratic in a democratic set up like ours. Films can be categorized according to the age group and the board must be associated with providing the certificate only. I believe that parents are the best censor tool and if they fail; no censor board can work. I must say that censor board has lost its significance in recent times.”
The 47-year-old actor opened up on his failed attempts to get admission into NSD, he said, “While I was working with the big names in theatre, my yearning for the admission into NSD was not getting low. I wanted to get adept in techniques and nuances of this medium that I think are best taught at NSD.”
“People are doing fraud in the name of realism while characterization has to be stressed. Characterization should be the primary step for an actor before graduating towards the realism.” He was asked about his role model and he answered, “Role model keeps on changing. Acting is a diverse field and you cannot settle with just one. My role model varies as per the demand of time and acting.”
During the session of ‘Meet the Director’ – face to face at National School of Drama, renowned Bangladeshi theatre personality Ramendu Majumdar, the producer of ‘Prothom Partho’ said, “In our Bangladeshi curriculum unfortunately we perceive Ramayana and Mahabharata as religious scriptures not epics, so the inspiration from Mahabharata was something new.” Baharul Islam, director of Hansini when asked about the editing of the original script of Anton Chekhov, Majumdar said, “We edited some characters from the original script of Chekhov because our adaption of the play was different but the editing did not interfere with the original humor of the play, and also we wanted our adaption to reach as many people as possible so we finalized on Hindi language.” Tripurari Sharma, Director of Shaayar Shutter…down enlightened the audience on how she came up with the name of the play, she said, “there is an inherent loneliness in every one of us and it is amplified when we get busy in our daily lives but the original side of a person is when he/she has free time and opens the shutter which was down all day.” Kumar A Bharti, playwright of Blood and Beauty said, “many people have a misconception that the folklore on Heera Haran on which the play is based on is from Himachal Pradesh but that’s not true it is originally from Jammu and Kashmir that’s why we chose Kashmiri costumes.”
Katha workshop series in performance and craft of 19th Bharat Rang Mahotsav had its 4th workshop on Ojapali.
Ojapali is distinctive and among the oldest performing arts of Assam. Performed by men, Ojapali performance combines singing and dancing alongwith improvised dialogues and dramatization. The Oja – proficient in dancing and singing, leads the performance. 3 or 4 palis, supplement it with the rhythm of their khutitaals and the palm-sized cymbals; the performers wore long sleeved white robes and silver jewellery and nupur bells on their feet. Ojapali performers render ‘malanci geet’ and ‘jagar’, both styles sung in Sanskrit. Byah and Sukananni are the two major forms of Ojapali.
The 19th edition of Bharat Rang Mahotsav is on till February 21. So hurry up and catch the best of theatre this year.