The Company Theatre was formed by Sheeba Chadha, Atul Kumar, Manish Chawdhary and Sanjeev Sharma in 1993 in New Delhi. This year it celebrates two decades of creativity, laughter, tears, toil, struggle and triumph. In a country addicted to cinema and cricket, for a theatre group to have come so far and created a new mindscape in whatever capacity it could is miraculous. We go back down the memory trail with Atul Kumar who dreams big, talks little and endlessly co-creates memories with his family of colleagues and a dedicated audience that associates his brand of theatre with passion, integrity and uncompromised intellectual and dramatic fervour.
**
Atul recalls, ” The Company Theatre was formally inaugurated with it partnering and organising Prithvi International Theatre Festival in New Delhi. Companies like Philippe Genty, Footsbarn Theatre, Lasenkan Theatre, Meta Theatre were invited to perform at different venues in New Delhi. The inauguration was at Sri Fort Auditorium; Sri Vasant Sathe lit the lamp and Sri Shashi Kapoor gave the inaugural speech- and then what happened on the way God only knows…20 years later, this afternoon, I found myself looking at a beautiful lake, surrounded by hills covered in green, a hundred water falls, an empty rehearsal space, smell of coffee and a puppy licking my feet!”
**
How it all began..
Chingari is a Delhi based Theatre Group. Many young people today have not even heard of it but in the 80’s and 90’s it produced some of the most cutting edge theatre in New Delhi and actually managed to tour its plays to other cities. The story started in Alliance Francaise Delhi where along with some others, Mr K Kichenassamy Madavane rounded up a bunch of youngsters and started experimenting with modern drama. Slowly, an independent new theatre group was born. It was Chingari. The first play was Girish Karnad’s Tuglaq at Sri Ram Centre. In its second show, the actor playing Tuglaq fell on stage from 18 feet height and broke his head among other body parts!
**
However, he was back on stage performing the next day. And then there was no looking back. This was 1983. In 1984, when I was 16- years- old, I was abducted by some ‘goons’ from Chingari from my most comfortable Marwari business family in Old Delhi. I was then subjected to child labour and made to act in Marx Frisch’s Firebugs directed by Rajat Kapoor. It was also his first play as a director. The play was rehearsed in the large toilets of IIT Delhi since they had no rehearsal space. It also opened to the large audience of three people in IIT auditorium with more people on stage than in the audience. I would have run away, but then I met the most beautiful woman ever- Sylvia Jayanthi. I was besotted. I decided to let go of my family business of dry fruits, silver foils and pickles and started reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
**
Clowning away..
C for Clown, was our first real devised work. Directed by Rajat Kapoor and his company Cinematograph‘s first theatre project. We struggled for days to find an appropriate ending to the piece. Then finally decided that we shall shoot a short film on 35 mm and merge the two mediums and project the film through a single reel old projector on a mini screen at the end of the play. You know the lovely sound an old projector makes! That too in a circus tent? We are thrilled with the idea. Rajat manages to arrange some money for the film. We shoot at Prithvi Theatre, Madh Island and on the roads here and there.
**
We have super footage we think. We are excited. Then one day, we get to rehearse the show at Prithvi Theatre. Rajat decides to carry the negative of the film to the theatre as he has give it to the laboratory after the rehearsal. Somewhere in the middle of the rehearsal Rajat screams!! “OH MY GOD!” Holds his head in his hands and makes a sound like there is no tomorrow. We all look at him! And then he says, “I forgot the Film Can in the auto-rickshaw!” All of us are motionless, our jaws drop. We looked for the film all over Bombay, but of course could never find it.
**
And then,
We went and shot the whole film again. It turned out to be a lovely second take. We did more than 100 shows of C for Clown all over the world, And we used the film only in the first couple of runs, ha!
**
The Flight Gag!
So we are performing Noises Off in NCPA Exp in Mumbai. Our lead actor Vijay Krishna Acharya playing Garry, throws a flight bag from the first floor of the set to land on the head of our other actor Habib Faizal on the ground floor.
**
Vijay uses all his force to throw the bag. And he dislocates his shoulder in the middle of the show. He goes backstage and does not come back on. I run backstage to see him lying on the floor, in immense pain, surrounded by our entire backstage team, no one knew what to do, show is on, audience is waiting for something to happen…nothing!
**
We quickly pack the actor off to the doctor and guess what. Sitting in the audience, in that very show, that evening, is Neil Bhooplam, the understudy of the same character. He has come to see the show with his family. Before anyone knows anything, he jumps to his feet, enters the scene as Garry and without any real tech rehearsal takes on the role from where Vijay left and completes the rest of the show. It is seamless and disbelief is suspended! It is one of those magical evenings!
**
The Doors…
Please note: The pic above is for reference only.
**
And so it is 2003. Shows of Noises Off at Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai. One of our actors playing Lloyd (The Director) is miffed and terribly annoyed with us because we did not write his name in the brochure also as the set designer. So we explain to him that the set was not designed by him but another architect friend of ours, which he only helped in the making of. And that anyway his primary job in the play was as an actor.
**
But there was no convincing him and he was really really angry with us. No really, he was ANGRY!! So what does he do? Next morning, on the show day, before anyone comes to the theatre, he reaches the theatre and fools the guard on duty, and steals three of our detachable doors that belonged to the set, loads them on to a taxi and buggers off!
**
We all reach the theatre much later and no one notices the missing doors and then closer to the show our production manager gets a feeling that something is missing…comes running to me to tell me about the doors. We look for them all over, cannot find them! We ask the theatre and they tell us our own man took them away this morning. Our man!! And then we realise what has happened. We call him, he does not pick up his phone.
**
Finally, when he does, he refuses to come back. Time is running out. We have a show at 6 pm and it is already 4:30 pm. Volunteers run to the market buy some more wood. Our carpenters start making new doors. Third bell! Audience is in! Carpenters ‘in black pants and T-shirts’ are still making doors on stage. Sounds of nails being hammered, wood being sawed, jazz music playing in the house…but somehow it is all making sense- “it all about doors and sardines” Frayn wrote! And all this putting up of the set last minute coinciding with what the show is all about anyway…the last nail in and the show begins. I stepped in to play his part. Calm Down Everyone…
I never saw that actor around again, ever!
**
The show goes on..always!
The NCPA Exp show of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. A huge production! Inflated plastic, flying all over the stage, royal curtains falling from top on to the stage, actors on stilts, fire, masks, a life size chariot on stage and then finally the last act aboard a ship- ropes, flags, barrels, ladders, sails etc. So, a black-out on stage and a whole minute long set change from the royal courts of Elsinore to the top of the ship. Sheeba is acting as the ‘Player’.
**
She has to hide behind the barrels in the blackout. Only, a huge rope ladder with hard-wood steps falls on her head in the dark. Lights! The scene starts. When the Player has to jump out from behind the barrels, Sheeba comes out holding her head and I am wondering what is this new pose she is striking! Only slowly I realise what has happened. Her head is badly wounded, blood is flowing from under her hat all over face, as she is pressing her head hard to stop the blood and goes through an entire 30 minutes scene with R & G in style. The scene even has a comic leaning and she does not falter. The scene ends and she makes an exit. As soon as she steps into the wings she faints.
**
Sanjna Kapoor at Prithvi
Sanjna had this wonderful open Maruti Gypsy when I first came to Bombay to perform The Chairs at NCPA. After the show we had to transport our set and a hundred chairs to Prithvi for the next run there. Before we knew, she was picking up chairs and loading them herself on to her Gypsy! The car was stacked very high with these folding chairs and some of us with her- what a wonderful drive it was through Marine Drive…and what a wonderful, mad, nutcase of a friend I found!
**
The moped that flew..
This happened two days before my performance of Tartuffe by Moliere directed by Kichenassamy Madavane in Delhi. It is 1986 or 1987. We plan to have a public ‘run-through’ in front of the village folk and passers by in the ruins of Hauz Khas. The fancy shops and restaurants there were a distant future at that point in time. So all actors are summoned there sometime in the afternoon. I am being picked by a theatre friend..let us call him..S.. on his ‘moped’. This guy has never ridden a moped. This is probably his first day on it and he does not know that probably one should not drive too fast on a new moped. Otherwise the engine can seize.
**
We are somewhere at AIIMS when the engine does seize. The moped just stops completely, suddenly and starts to skid right in the middle of the road. Straight to zero from 60 KM. I hold on tight to S. From behind, a big ambassador car swirls trying to avoid hitting us. But just behind the car is a motor cycle that cannot stop and bangs into us full speed. I am thrown far away on the road. My friend S. goes screeching on to the ground along with his beautiful new moped. The guy on the motorcycle flies in the air and falls some distance away from us. Many cars and scooters go screeching here and there.
**
Full Hollywood Ishtyle! I am badly hurt. I think my ankle is broken. It is cut too. I am half fainting and all I can hear is audience applause and all I can see is myself in 18th century French costume…covered in blood. Good news. S is not hurt. He gets up. Just then the guy on the motorcycle also gets up and goes to the curb and starts spewing blood from his mouth. My friend freaks out when he see this! He thinks he has killed the man. He leaves me half faint on the road and goes running to the man and asks “Aap theek hain bhai sahab?” The motorcycle guy just turns around and says ” Nahin Nahin main theek hoon, yeh to sirf paan hai!”
**
No time for repairs. Rahul Vohra does my role and Rajat Kapoor oes Rahul Vohra’s role and I just sit in the chair on stage as Madame Pernelle or something, with my foot in a cast.
**
The legacy of love..
My daughter. She is all of four-and -a- half years old in Kolkata, 2010. The show of The Blue Mug is on. All actors are on stage. She has already made her tiny little entry and exit. Now she is getting bored sitting in the wings with me, watching the play. She is sleepy and decides to lie down on the bench on which we are sitting with her head in my lap. ‘Please wake me up when the Dance comes,’ she whispers and prepares to lie down.
**
She miscalculates in the dark and her heads slips off my lap and hits the sharp edge of the bench. She gets up and still whispering tells me to take her into the greenroom. I don’t understand. I lead her to the greenroom which is a flight of stairs up. I am confused why she is doing this. I can’t really see anything its so dark in the wings. We enter the green room and she starts crying. I see she has a cut just above her left eye. I asked her why she didn’t tell me downstairs when she got hurt. She says ‘But Baba the show was going on na!’
**
Join The Company Theatre on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thecompanytheatre/..for more updates.
Join the celebrations and watch The Company Theatre‘s production of Piya Behrupiya, the uproarious interpretation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at Bangalore’s Ranga Shankara
4th & 5th Oct, Fri-Sat at 7:30 pm
6th Oct, Sun at 3:30pm and 7:30 pm
Tickets- www.bookmyshow.com
Tele-Bookings- 09820192778