Skip to main content

Enter the 'Dragaon'

My interview with Tushar Pandey


---
The Hindi adaptation of Evgeny Shvarts’ Russian play, The Dragon will be staged in the city on April 5. Directed by Tushar Pandey, the play holds a magnifying glass to the socio-political changes taking place in the society, says Ambika Shaligram.

Banned by the Post-War Stalin government for its anti-authoritarian theme, Russian playwright Evgeny Shvarts’ biting satire is spun out of myth and lore. The central character is a big, bad dragon who has ruled a town for 400 years and now he has set his eyes on the town’s loveliest maidens, when enters the ‘knight in shining armour’. The ‘knight’ is a well-travelled young man who is on a mission to save the town and rescue the damsel from her tragic plight. But there’s just one problem. The townsfolk don’t want to be saved!

Power Play
Translated from English into Hindi by Harsh Khurana, the adaptation will be staged by the students of The Drama School, Mumbai, in association with Mumbai Marathi Sangha. Directed by Tushar Pandey, a graduate of National School of Drama and London International School for Performing Arts, The Dragon touches upon various inter-related concepts like leadership, power and the mechanics of their working. The concepts are universal and timeless in their pertinence.

Fantasy vs reality
Shvarts turned to fairy tales as a narrative tool for his play. Pandey didn’t make any departure from this aspect. But, he did change the treatment and style of the play.
Says he, “Yes I did change the treatment / style of the play; but it was not done to suit Indian audience more. Rather, I find this style more engaging and expressive. The focus of the whole play, according to me, is the townspeople and chorus (which are not present in the original text), and what they bring to the story in terms of the concept. This is what I’ve tried to build on.”
The fairy tales are set in the world of fantasy, fiction, imagination — a perfect medium to highlight the brutalities of power play. When asked if that makes fairy tales a convenient tool to dish out unpalatable truths, Pandey says, “Definitely, fairy tales do create a very conducive world in which one can say anything, and yet stay distant from the action. Shvarts used them to express the dynamics of leadership. I did find the fantasy in Shvarts writing most engaging. But my world in the play wrestles between fantasy and today’s time.”

Objective look
He explains that some issues are best dealt in the style which places the audience not in the centre, but away, so that they can look at an issue objectively. By making use of myths and folktales, the writer or the director achieves just that.
“In the case of The Dragon, Shvarts had no choice but to write in fairy tale format, for the time that he lived in, didn’t allow him to write in any other style,” says Pandey adding that the main change he has brought into the production is the note on which the play ends.
“Shvarts’ writing in a specific time and period, brings closure. I’ve interpreted the script to leave on a more uncertain note. This is mainly done in the third act, which is not just different performatively, but also conceptually. The current script is also technically twice removed from the original — it’s a Hindi translation of an English translation of a Russian script. And I think that’s also quite interesting as a process as far as adapting through translation goes,” he concludes.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Portrait of a poet

This has already been published in the Sunday supplement. Krishnaji Keshav Damle also known as Keshavsut --- Poetry never really appealed to me. And, so it was with great reluctance that I agreed to my husband's plan to visit Keshavsut Smarak – a memorial raised in memory of 'Father of Modern Marathi Poetry', Krishnaji Keshav Damle – in Malgund. We were in Ganapatipule at that time and decided to go to Malgund, a 10-minute drive (a kilometre) from the popular tourist destination. A sign-post told us to take a left turn and what greeted us, at the end of the lane, was tranquil silence. No security guards, no tourists, just a plaque announcing that Damle, popularly known as Keshavsut, was born in the red-roofed house, surrounded by green shrubbery. Keshavsut's house in Malgund  A poem by Keshavsut  The house, renovated in the old style, was near-empty, except for Keshavsut's portrait that was hanging from the wall in the front room. In the

Many ideas of ‘self’ (Review of Pratibimb, Marathi play)

With Mahesh Elkunchwar’s name as a writer associated with Pratibimb (Reflection), you know nothing in the play will be at face value. Nothing is what it seems. It is difficult for commoners to get into Elkunchwar’s mindspace, which is precisely the subject of the Marathi play, which was staged earlier in August and will now be performed again on Friday, September 15 at Sudarshan Rangmanch, Shaniwar Peth. While watching the play, it’s evident that the viewer has to peel various layers to get to the core of the story — Who are you? What does ‘self-identity’ mean? Is it so bad if your reflection goes missing or if you have no identity? Thokale (a white-collared office goer) wakes up one morning and finds his reflection missing. Enters Bai, his landlady, who tries to assure him that nothing is lost. In fact, it could be a ‘breaking news’ for the newspaper. This perhaps could have led to a lot of chaos physically. Instead, we are led to the darkness looming large in our dystopian minds

Pune: Road widening stirs debate on how citizen groups can be more effective (First published in Citizen Matters)

  A Prabhat Road bylane where road widening has been proposed. Pic: Ambika Shaligram “One of our neighbours suddenly saw notices, announcing the Pune Municipal Corporation’s proposal to widen six-metre roads to nine metres and inviting objections within a stipulated time frame, pasted randomly in the lanes of the Anand Park locality,” says Dr Dhananjay Rau, president of Anand Park Residents Association (APRA), a housing society in Aundh. “It took us completely by surprise. Thankfully, we still had time, so we submitted our objections to the PMC.” The six internal lanes of Anand Park are dead-ends and do not connect to the main road. So why widen the roads, the residents ask. Uncertain utility apart, there will also be an environmental fallout, they argue. “There are about 25-30 trees in each lane and these will have to be axed if the roads are widened,” adds Dr Rau. “We have to consider this environmental impact. Plus widening the main road will lead to more traffic and accidents. So w