Challenge accepted

Last night I watched senior theatre doyen Arundhati Nag mesmerise a packed house at RangaShankara. Ordinarily this is not an unusual event. She has mesmerised thousands of audiences with thousands of plays.

But, this time she was performing White Rabbit, Red Rabbit; a play that demands that the actor to have no prior knowledge about the text. Then they are handed the script on stage, and must proceed to then read it out to the audience. All without any rehearsal or direction.

Normally, this is mortifying for an actor.

A couple of hours earlier, someone in the café asked me, “Why is she doing this She doesn’t need to experiment. She’s already one of the all-time greats.”

I shrugged and was reminded of a conversation many years ago with another theatre legend, Meenal Patel.

We were chatting backstage waiting for our respective entries. She was already a huge star in Gujarati and Hindi theatre, and she too didn’t really need to be in this play. But her reasoning was that this was a new play with a new director, and if she doesn’t work with the newer directors then she will stagnate in her art, and be left behind when Theatre as a whole evolves. For her the entire craft was about evolution, and therefore challenging oneself is part of the duty of an actor.

Acting styles can get dated. Rehearsal processes get dated. Story-telling techniques get dated. The only way for an actor to consistently stay relevant to an audience is to advance his/her craft even further, by being malleable.

Often comfortable working relationships make you complacent. On more than one occasion working partnerships with a few actors have ended because both the actor and I have realised that we weren’t challenging each other anymore. We each had an assumption of what the other was capable of, and therefore worked only within boundaries. This led to competent but never spectacular results .and if we aren’t aiming for perfection, then what was the point

Unfortunately the commercial arts of film and television rarely test an actor. Casting is based on who can deliver the role in the shortest amount of shooting time. Workshops and rehearsals are not usually part of the film-making schedule. The theatre, on the other hand, is where an actor goes to challenge oneself. So actors used to text-based work, will suddenly dive into improvisational theatre. Or movement-based performers will suddenly pursue parts that are text heavy. Or great spoken word actors will attempt musical theatre. Challenging oneself is part of the process.

Arundhati Nag’s rendition of White Rabbit Red Rabbit was a wilful act of refusing to be stuck in the quagmire of mundanity and comfort. It was a courageous decision, putting everything on the line: her craft, her skill, her reputation; laying it all bare. And then, just when she seemed at her most vulnerable, she rose to conquer the challenge with a performance of grace, beauty and control.

Once the show was done, I met the same person in the café: “I still don’t know why she did,” he said, “But am damn glad she did!”

So am I. So are all of us who were present that night.