‘We need to keep changing to survive’ – Virajas Kulkarni on the future of Indian theatre
A still from Mickey. Photo courtesy: Virajas Kulkarni / Time Tales Studio
A conversation with Virajas Kulkarni, actor, playright, director, and co-founder of Theatron Entertaiment: “Nobody can deny the electricity of a live performance. But we do need to keep changing what is being performed, and how it is being performed.”
Virajas Kulkarni has always had a special sense for the unusual. The actor, playwright, and director is also the co-founder of Theatron Entertainment, a Pune-based theatre group consisting professionals have churned out out-of-the-box theatrical and web productions for years, including So What, We Want Charlie!, and Bhanvar, which, in 2017 became the only Asian play selected for the 17th International Youth Theatre festival, Vreme - Vratza, Bulgaria.
Kulkarni achieved one of his personal highlights with Mickey in 2019, a Shakespearean drama in Marathi that earned him nominations for directing, original, script, and acting at the Mahindra Excellent in Theatre Awards (META) Festival. Co-directed by Kulkarni and Suraj Parasnis, Mickey is the story of three barbers in 1980s Pune who, through a turn of fate, come across a dead body. Kulkarni plays one of these barbers—Sakharam—and this tragicomedy follows the three characters as their discovery turns into an exploration of their psyches, their moralities, and their desperations. In 2019, Kulkarni also wrote the play Daavikadun Chauthi Building.
In the aftermath of the release of Mickey and critical acclaim, however, followed an unforeseen real-life tragedy that even the most creative dramatists could hardly foresee: the global COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting lockdown in India. Like many other theatre artistes, Kulkarni and Theatron moved much of their services to the internet, holding online performances to stay engaged with the audience, and particularly leading the way for modern Marathi-language productions.
Theatre is a particularly unique art-form, in that, the presence of a live audience is in its basic DNA; it is its raison d'être. It is also the exact anti-thesis of the demands of our times, where mass gatherings are discouraged, and there is a desperate need for distance from one another. Literature, films, music, and visual arts (to an extent) may be experienced sufficiently from the safety of our own homes, but the experience of a moving theatrical presentation can hardly be reproduced on a screen. It is why so many of India’s top stage performers are scrambling for unique ways to keep the spirit of drama alive in these unprecedented times.
We need to put out stuff that pulls audiences into the theatre, things that cannot be experienced through any other medium. That is the reason we have constantly tried to put out unusual plays, from horror-comedies to pantomime to sci-fi musicals. I believe if theatre is to not only survive but also thrive, we need to reflect upon tradition, and then move on to whatever will be the next step in the evolution.
Kulkarni remains optimistic. “People have been lamenting about the eventual death of theatre since I can remember,” he said in interview with The Chakkar recently. “But I firmly believe that as long as we keep adapting to the audience’s needs, we will definitely survive.”
In a varying Q&A, Kulkarni spoke about his experience with Theatron so far, his projects in the time of COVID, and the path forward for Indian theatre.
Q. For Mickey, you received nominations for directing, original script, and acting. Are you usually involved in so many different facets of a project? How do you balance the challenge of these different roles—being in-charge both on and off stage?
Kulkarni: I think, as is the case with most people who start their own theatre groups in their late teens, one has to become sort of a jack of all trades. When I founded Theatron Entertainment in 2011 with a couple of my friends, the goal was being able to present the kind of content that we would want to watch, to play characters that we wanted to play. I became an accidental playwright simply because there was no other way to find a script that we wanted to do. We started directing because it was easier to not have to convince someone else to execute the kind of random content we were coming up with.
The first play we did was written and co-directed by me, and I also played onstage with my co-director. And that was an English Horror-Comedy—something unheard of in the Pune theatre scene. That dynamic somehow stuck with us.
Also, I have always been a Charlie Chaplin fan since I could walk. One simply cannot watch a master storyteller like Chaplin write, direct, act in, edit, and compose music for his films, and not end up wanting to learn everything possible related to your field of interest.
Q. What have you been working on now—and how has it been affected by the virus and lockdown?
A still from Mickey. Photo courtesy: Virajas Kulkarni / Time Tales Studio
Kulkarni: We released two major productions in the last couple of years: Mickey, of course, and a play called Daavikadun Chauthi Building, which I have also written for. Our group, which started as a bunch of teenagers now has almost all its key members working in the entertainment industry professionally. So, we decided to adapt and put out a couple of web shows on our YouTube channel. We were also the first group from Pune to premiere our most popular plays on YouTube for a single show free of cost for thousands of people over the world. The biggest projects that happened were we premiered a short film of Disney+ Hotstar, which is also selected for the IFF Stutgart, Germany 2020; and we put out our first web-series—Idiot Box—on MX Player. We also collected money to be personally donated to all the staff at the theatres that we frequent.
Q. Other popular art-forms like films, books, music etc, can be experienced from home easily. But theatre is unique in the way that, its very essence is in a large gathering. How has the lockdown and the necessity for so many of us to stay home effected the form?
Kulkarni: One conversation that I think everyone has been having is about exploring alternative performance spaces. If people cannot go the theatre, theatre must come to the people. In what shape and form, however, remains to be seen—but we do have a couple of interesting experiments in mind for which we are figuring out the logistics.
Q. How badly has the theatre scene in India been hit by the lockdown, in general?
Kulkarni: As is the case with most so-labelled ‘non-essential’ businesses that rely on people to run, it feels more like a matter of ‘who stored enough nuts for the winter’ kind of a situation. Theatre has withstood the advent of cinema, TV, and the internet, so I doubt that three-four months will really hamper its survival of theatre. Although many of the people who made theatre what it is will most likely suffer. Experimental theatre will surely survive, because all we know are prolonged periods without much income anyway!
Q. What are some things that playwrights/directors such as yourself are doing to overcome these issues followed by the COVID-19?
Kulkarni: I think everyone realises the fact that this is a necessary evil, and we are prepared to weather the lockdown to open safely. We know that whenever we open our doors, even a single case within the audience will only further damage our prospects. There is a fear that people might not be willing to return to packed auditoriums even after the legal lockdown has ended.
Apart from trying to figure out alternative platforms, everyone seems determined to use this forced sabbatical for good, and creative minds everywhere are no doubt churning out ideas and concepts.
Q. What do you think will be the future of theatre in India, and especially of theatre in regional languages?
Kulkarni: People have been lamenting about the eventual death of theatre since I can remember. I firmly believe that as long as we keep adapting to the audience’s needs, we will definitely survive. Nobody can deny the electricity of a live performance. But we do need to keep changing what is being performed, and how it is being performed.
Lin-Manuel Miranda has proved with Hamilton that people will sit and watch an outlandish concept for almost three hours, and love it, if it is presented in a way that excites them. Simply making a decent, well-acted product isn’t enough now. We need to put out stuff that pulls audiences into the theatre, things that cannot be experienced through any other medium. That is the reason we have constantly tried to put out unusual plays, from horror-comedies to pantomime to sci-fi musicals. I believe if theatre is to not only survive but also thrive, we need to reflect upon tradition, and then move on to whatever will be the next step in the evolution of live theatre.
In the words of Bob Dylan, “You better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone; for the times they are a-changin'.”
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Karan Madhok is a writer, journalist, and editor of The Chakkar, whose fiction, translation, and poetry have appeared in Gargoyle, The Literary Review, F(r)iction, and more. He is the founder of the Indian basketball blog Hoopistani and has contributed to NBA India, SLAM Magazine, FirstPost, and more. Karan is currently working on his first novel. Twitter: @karanmadhok1
