Renowned theatre artist Arundhati Nag was in Guwahati to perform her play “Mother Courage and Her Children” at the Guwahati Theatre Festival organised by G Plus.
The thespian hardly needs an introduction – over the years, she has proved to be one of the few, talented, multi-lingual actors that Indian theatre can be rightly proud of. Today, along with her acting assignments in both theatre and film, she manages her dream theatre ‘Ranga Shankara’ in Bengaluru.
Nag was born in Delhi, but her family moved to Mumbai when she was 10. Acting and drama came naturally to her. “I got into theatre as normally and naturally as anyone – by acting in school plays, performing at the annual day functions of our colony or watching Ram Leela in Delhi. Television had not yet come and theatre was ‘the thing’! But for me, that’s how it always remained. Theatre is ‘the thing’.”
Thanks to Arundhati’s felicity with languages, she became the toast of the theatre world.
While most Indians speak three languages, Arundhati is fluent in multiple languages including Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Tamil, Hindi and English.
“I feel that if I come to Assam, I'll learn Assamese and do theatre in Assamese too. Because I feel there's no point doing just English theatre over here. I believe that if you have to touch the pulse of the people, you have to speak their language. Only then will you understand their poetry, their metaphors. And I believe, metaphors are locked in the local languages,” she said.
The artist feels that in theatre, the lines stay with the performers unlike a movie where you learn it for a moment, you deliver and it's gone.
Arundhati has been successful in film and television as well, being part of the blockbuster Kannada film, Jogi and winning the national award for supporting actress for her role in Paa. But she says that her most favourite medium continues to be theatre.
“Film is a different medium in the sense that it captures everything for posterity, it has a larger audience, it multiplies your gesture, your body and your image 10 times larger than what you are – everything is magnified. For the actor, there has to be that sense of being conscious of the media. But theatre is the only medium where your body is as big as it is and you are what you are. No gimmicks.”
For the actress, there is only one passion at a time. When her husband, Shankar Nag passed away, Ranga Shankar, a theatre project became her passion. Reminiscing about the inception of Ranga Shankara, Arundhati asserted, “When I came to Bangalore with my husband about 38 years ago, there was only one theatre and it had a mandate to be given to various other performing artists. And so, we theatre people did not have a dedicated place. We had just come from Mumbai, carrying the dream of a Prithvi theatre alike in our hearts, so the inception of Ranga Shankara happened because of this lack of space and the need for it.”
Today, Ranga Shankara is 13 years old and has held more than 500 performances, with over 400 shows of theatre in different languages every year. Performing groups pay the trust Rs 2,500 for the entire day, and tickets are priced mostly at Rs 50. “We take a cut of the ticket money only when it’s priced above Rs 50, but no ticket here costs more than Rs 200,” Arundhati said, pointing out that the rent of Rs 2,500 barely serves to pay the electricity cost for a day. “We almost never break even; this isn’t a business, it’s public service,” she added.
Nag’s only dream for Ranga Shankara is, “We should be able to influence the direction that Indian theatre takes from here.”
Prithvi theatre is 32 years old. And Ranga Shankara was born many years after Prithvi. After 13 years, the team behind Ranga Shankara is still waiting for somebody to get inspired and build a space for their city - an affordable world class space dedicated to theatre.
Talking about the difficulties faced as a theatre artist while performing with different artists each time, Arundhati explained, “Doing Mother Courage and Her Children was a little difficult for me because I had gone back to Mumbai and worked in theatre after 38 long years! And most of the team members are one third my age, but that's mostly why I took the play. Because when will I ever get the chance to work with these youngsters who are going to be the future of Indian theatre? When I was working in Mumbai earlier, I was doing Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi theatre. I never did English theatre. And here I am, doing an English play after 38 years.”
Speaking about her experience with the team of Mother Courage she said, “Quasar is an amazing director and a great team builder. He invested the initial two and a half weeks in just team building - playing games, indulging in exercises, talking about personal moments of finding joy and loss. Each one of us now knows a little about each other. The emotional bonding has become really strong and we're all very attached to each other. It has been a good ride working with the lot.”
Arundhati, having been associated with the theatre world for so long, says she doesn’t see any changes in the theatre scenes in the country. “The madness is still the same and the only change I see is that these youngsters are ready to invest a little more than us. The competition is also much more and the stakes are higher.”