Dear 2020: Makarand Deshpande’s open letter to the coming year

If plays are not written by people living in present times, how will they reflect the angst and concerns of today?

2020 My Dear,

Makarand Deshpande’s new play Ram is a satire on the religious bigotry; Location courtesy: Prithvi Theatre (Brahms Dirsipo)

I want to see more original writing in theatre.Theatre is about telling the truth, it is about presenting realities. If plays are not written by people living in that time, how will they reflect the angst and concerns of that time? Adapting plays and fitting them into a contemporary context is not the same as staging a play that is written for today. If I am doing a play on Ram, then yes, I am taking the characters from the Ramayana but my play is written in today’s context: Pitaji Please is a play born out of the communal tensions we face today. If written well, such plays find a better connect with the audience.

“There are also people who adapt old classics because they don’t want to experiment with something new. That is lazy.”

I have nothing against adapting older plays. Some plays are indeed timeless, and then there are stories so beautifully written that they need to be told. Naseer does a lot of stories on stage, and by doing so he introduces them to a newer set of audience. That is a brilliant idea. Also, there are plays that are actors’ delights; that test their acting skills. But there are also people who adapt old classics because they don’t want to experiment with something new. That is lazy. Original writing reflects your own history, reference points, your point of view, and that is crucial.

Many people will argue that there is no money for playwrights. If you are a playwright by profession, the commercial aspect is also important. Marathi theatre pays good money to writers. Sadly, that is not always the case with Hindi and English theatre. Having said that, theatre people are not in it for the money! So, it is never that a playwright will switch to writing web series for money. Play likhnewala aadmi alag hota hai aur baat yeh hai ke play likhna asaan nahin hai. It has a different structure and a different grammar. Vichardhara likhni parti hai. You don’t need hundreds of locations and sets and changes. Theatre writing, to have an impact, needs to be dramatic. Take the soliloquies of Tagore’s Chitrangada, which is a dance drama, or even the last scene of Akira Kurosawa’s movie Yojimbo: some of the finest examples of theatrical writing goes beyond plays.

To learn this craft, the only way is to read and watch good plays, pick out the nuances, find the theatricality. Exposure to different kinds of plays, including folk theatre, is very important. You have to have a little madness in you to be a playwright. And, you have to create magic on stage with the writing.

(As told to Ananya Ghosh)

Naseeruddin Shah’s open letter to 2020. Read here

Piyush Mishra’s open letter to 2020. Read here

Faezeh Jalali’s poem for 2020. Read here

HT Brunch cover story: By the people, for the people, of the people… Four thespians write down their wishlist for 2020. Read the entire article here

From HT Brunch, December 29, 2019

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