The Hindu Friday February
29, 2008
Breaking
new ground
THEATRE "Salaam India” has something new to offer
in terms of format.
ROMESH CHANDER
 IMPRESSIVE A scene from the play |
This past week at Kamani auditorium Theatre World presented ''Salaam
India'- a play directed by Lushin Dubey, which saw something new in Indian
theatre, "particularly' in its format.
The director in her introductory note to the play said, "We have come through
it all. Be it our culture, our history or the structure of our society.
We have been subjugated but never defeated. We have steadfastly hung on
to our resilience and hope as a people. Our aspirations and our ambitions,
our youthful democracy of merely 61 years, our drive towards making ourselves
a major global power in technology, in our spirit of entrepreneurship, and
in our pan Indianess. Our ability to delve into our rich and varied traditions
and adapt them to modern times without forsaking our identity and our roots
has been the mantra of our survival. The play has four actors who portray
sixteen characters altogether. Different situational excerpts from their
life bring about contradictions, joy, humour, hope and aspirations that
drive them."
"Salaam India" had some of the best backstage artist like Louis Banks as
music composer, Ashley Lobo as choreographer, Dolly Ahluwalia as costume
designer and Martand Khosla as the set designer. Martand designed the set
with four-inches broad aluminium pipes, used in a single line to create
different areas like the basti on the outskirts, a building in the city,
balcony of a house and so on. The director Lushin
Dubey made excellent use of it to introduce variation in actors in each
episode.
The play presents different the society in Delhi in
four different stories. The first is the basti, which is followed by a story
built around corruption and honesty. The third story is based on an America-return
uncle’s girl named Sonali’s views on dowry, with horoscopes and pujas
thrown in.
The last story in built around politicians, with long speeches that at times
drag and need to be drastically edited. The play written by Nicholas Kharkongor
is inspired by Pawan Verma’s bestseller “Being Indian”. Some of the
concepts as projected in the book such as hope and resilience have been
built into the character of different actors. For instances the buoyancy
of Meena in the basti story of the double agent’s cunning quality as that
of Bandopadhya.
The play and the presentation of the whole is a theatrical achievement that
breaks new ground. Louis’s music and choreography by Ashley give a body
to the play and Martland’s Khosla’s set design provides an opportunity
to the actors to exploit it differently. Little more thought by the lighting
designer and would have enhanced the overall impact of the presentation.
Full marks to each actor for taking on four different roles, with each demanding
a different histrionic talent. “Salaam India” must be kept alive.
 COMPLETE PERFORMER LUSHIN DUBEY PHOTO : V V KRISHNAN |
The Hindu - Metro Plus
Delhi Thursday- March, 06-08
Life on a roll
CONVERSATION
Lushin Dubey on the challenges of the stage. NANDINI NAIR reports
"Acting is a wrong word. It's not 'acting', it's 'feeling'." Veteran ac-
Lushin Dubey does not 'become' but 'is' the character on stage. In "Salaam
India," brought by Theatre World and Airtel, recently to Delhi, she is four
different women. Directed by her, the play is inspired by Pavan K. Varma's
"Being Indian".
The play shifts between four separate narratives and scenarios. Through
insightful and in-telligent humour it reveals Indias idiosyncrasies. But
with deft respect it also illuminates Indian Phenomena like jugad, dhandha,
the return of the Diaspora and the dowry system. Set in Delhi- from
south Extension to the bastis- the play peals away some of Delhis differing
layers. With plans to travel with it, Dubey says,
"Delhi-centric is now India-Centric. With subtle differences there is a
heterogeneous sameness in India."
The first challenge of the play was to convert a novel into a script. Eyes
hidden behind glasses, she says, "With a novel there is a lot of fodder,
but there is not thread. You have all these different ingredients and you
have to bake them together." But with the help of "Nicholas Kharkongor the
play succeeds as a comprehensive script and not just
a summary of the book. Even when dealing with topics like national
identify or progress, it retains a certain buoyancy. Dubey explains that
this treatment is true to our countrys nature. "Theres
lightness of being. Its a strength which stems from our roots, from our
family support"
It doesn't bring forth a chest-beating patriotism. Instead, it is a quiet
confidence that comes from accepting who we are.
Each of the four actors plays multiple roles. This method is both convenient
and effective for Dubey. A smaller cast expedites travel. It's also a way
of maintaining control. "When you feel very strongly about a role and have
conceived it yourself, it's often easier to just play it oneself." Theatrically
also, the shifts are both exciting and challenging.
While she is actor and director in "Salaam India", Dubey asserts, "I love
directing. But will not give up my acting." In 1995, she set up Untitled
Players Guild that staged Shakespearean productions. She has travelled extensively
with "Bitter Chocolate", based on Pinki Virani's book, and "Muskaan", on
HIV. Having traversed through Shakespearean and social plays, this quintessential
stage actor says she enjoys being different passion. But she adds, "I love
my play 'Untitled', which will be going to Dubai soon. I play 10 characters
in it. It's my most memorable. It was my first solo with puppets. The demands
were tremendous."
Having started Kidsworld with her cousin Bubbles Sabharwal in 1987, this
childhood and special education specialist knows that talent is found unexpectedly.
She feels that other than passion and practice, actors need encouragement.
"A pat on the back makes a lot of difference," she says with a teacher's
fondness.
Having acted in about nine films, she says, "Theatre and film are my friends."
She adds, "On screen, less is more and on stage sometimes more is not enough!"
An idea has now taken seed in her mind. She plans to work on a play on foeticide.
The Pioneer Viva City Tuesday February 26, 2008
A potpourri called INDIA
By Utpal K Banerjee
How
varied and variegated in hues is one's view of India? And how colourful
is one's recognition of the impact of this plurality on one's humdrum life?
While introducing her latest venture, Salaam India on the Capital's stage,
the director Lushin Dubey thinks aloud, "Indians, a heterogeneous multifarious
lot, are difficult to define, and now even more so since we are at that
juncture in our history, where we are springing out of our past into the
modern global world."
The play, written by Nicholas Kharkonger and
inspired by Pavan Varma's non-fiction work, Being Indian, tries to
answer the difficult quetioo"tl1rougn some 21 different episodes
in the life of 16 characters in a stereotypical urban milieu. There is the
tottering granny who labours with her grand sibling to become 'something,
like a Maruti car, visible and tangible.' There is the ramshackle apartment
with its medley of inhabitants, putting up a brave front to save their home
from demolition and negotiating with a municipal executive for a consideration,
yet are they spared at the end? There is the frenetic negotiation on an
ageing spinster's marriage but again there are requests - not supposedly
dowry - which goes through the sky; but does the nuptial take place eventually?
And there are the politicians, debating endlessly and taking sample surveys
on the issue of national dish, in line with national animal or national
bird, but do they succeed in the pointless bickering or decide on Chinese
noodle as the final choice?
Amidst an entanglement of steel tubes as props, only four actors - Shena,
Ashish, Andrew and Lushin herself amazingly coalesce and interplay among
themselves chameleonlike, and work out all the situations through their
independent, or interactive, networks. The results are often hilarious and
occasionally sad, but the age-old veneers of Indian life about contradictions,
joy, humour, hope and aspirations that drive it shine glowingly at its seams.
Says Lushin, "I decided on the idea of confining myself only to two men
and two women actors, from the beginning. For an ensemble cast, it's vitally
important to have a family spirit and treat actions as though on a playground:
with good fellow feeling and without negativism! The play proceeds on a
non-linear fashion and the few actors have to lurch from one emotion to
another." Further she adds, "The steeltubes do provide an abstract setting,
but they are intended to balance against natural acting. Conventional comedies
tend to have both realist props as well as realist acting, but my intention
was not deliberately to evoke laughter but do one's role charged with emotion
and to share emotion with spectators in the factually-based play."
But, are the enacted incidents derived from the original work ?
Remonstrates Lushin, "Only the concept is taken from Varma's non-fiction
and the episodes are all invented by Nicholas and me, to do justice to the
spirit of the original. I spoke to many Hindi playwrights who offered their
own works on the theme, but only Nicholas could wonderfully capture Varma's
idea of India as a multitudinous whole. Of course, there were many re-writings
of the script and we added reinforcement by way of an initial holistic invocation
from Nehru's Discovery of India and Tagore's Gitanjali poem on the Aryans
and Non- Aryans all forming part of the same entity, called India. I was
lucky to have Louis Banks minimalist music and Ashley Lobo's splendid choreography,
to set it off!"
On the notion of adapting a total non-fiction to a dramatic form, recalls
Lushin, "When I was performing my solos, Untitled and Bitter Chocolate in
London, Varma's book, just released, came to my hands. I read through the
book in one go on the return flight and decided, there and then, to convert
it into a play."
 Pavan Varma, Lushin Dubey & Ashley Lobo |
Endorses
Varma, the writer-diplomat of Being India,
"I'm pleased with the adaptation that retains the essential spirit of the
book, and sets it around high entertainment value. Mine is a portrayal of
who we are to be comfortable in our own skin and stop being what people
thought we are! We, in spite of all our faults, have four assets: democracy,
entrepreneurship, new technology/knowledge and new sense of pan Indianness.
Lushin's play - with only four actors has been exceptionally
innovative and communicated the essential sense very well.