I’M A NERVOUS WRECK BEFORE EACH OF MY SHOWS

I’M A NERVOUS WRECK BEFORE EACH OF MY SHOWS

    In theatre, he’s the man with the Midas touch. With super-hit plays like Tumhari Amrita, Dinner With Friends and All The Best to his credit, Feroz Abbas Khan has consistently managed to hit the jackpot at the box office. The director of the critically acclaimed movie Gandhi, My Father, who opened this year’s Prithvi Theatre Festival with his favourite play, Salesman Ramlal, talks about his love and passion for the stage. 

Your association with the Prithvi theatre dates back to more than two decades. How did it all begin? When I was in college, we had a wonderful tradition of participating in intercollegiate drama competitions. Though I had joined college to become a chartered accountant, I got attracted to theatre and started off as an actor. At that time, there were so many exciting personalities around like Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Anupam Kher, Amrish Puri, Nadira Babbar and Alok Nath. It was perhaps the golden period for theatre and the standards back then were really high. Soon we formed a theatre company of our own and that was also the time when Prithvi Theatre Festival started. Actors would sit at Prithvi for hours and would be provided with subsidised food. They were also allowed to watch other plays for free, so it was like an abode. During this time, I met Jennifer Kapoor and we struck a kind of interesting and warm relationship. She used to share her vision and aspirations for Prithvi and that’s how the festival came into being. But on the last day of the festival, we got to know that she was suffering from a terminal illness. That’s when the family asked me to step in along with Kunal (Kapoor) and maintain continuity. It was a very difficult time. I felt extremely responsible but for Kunal, it was worse, because it was he who had to carry the torch forward and everyone was looking up to him. There was a lot of criticism and scepticism and people felt the place was going to go down soon. But we pulled up our socks and did a good job. In fact that year, 1985, saw the finest festival the city has ever seen. That year was the most important time in my life. 

Through the years, your plays have consistently been appreciated by the audiences. To what do you attribute the success? I haven’t been able to put my finger on the reason why my plays have been so successful. I have found a connection with the work that I do. I first connect with it on a personal level and then share it with a large number of people. But there is no formula. If there was, I would have kept churning out plays! One of my problems is that I take a lot of time to come up with new work. There should be something that will make me want to go out there and feel challenged all over again. Believe it or not, I am a nervous wreck before each of my shows and it’s very difficult for me to watch my own plays. If there is a wrong pause or wrong lighting, it affects me. Whenever I have felt that any play of mine is not going to realise its true potential, I close it down. I have shut down many popular plays even when the shows were going houseful. Because though the audience is very charitable and kind, I have certain standards and responsibilities towards myself. 

Tumhari Amrita is going strong even after 21 years. What is it that makes it so popular across generations? It is something that still surprises me. I don’t know why it has worked. It’s one play which I am very worried about; every time we perform it, I wonder if it will work. That is why the play is successful, because it has the freshness and energy of the first performance. It’s almost like a legacy that people are passing down from generation to generation. It has made a deep connection with people’s lives. I would say the credit goes purely to the writing. 

Some actors who began with theatre and moved on to TV and films, haven’t returned to their roots. Is it because cinema is more lucrative? Theatre needs a lot of dedication. Today, if you are a TV actor, you can pretty much have a career with five expressions and still be called a damn good actor. But that’s not the case in theatre. So naturally, if you can make so much money with five expressions, why would you want to do anything else? A lot of people believe that being an actor is only about making money. And once you are stuck in that rut, you can’t come back. If you want to come back to theatre, you have to go through the grind again and again and that is a lot of hard work and dedication. It’s a tough place. If a singer thinks he can be a singer without riyaz, he can be, but will he be a great singer? No. That’s the same thing with theatre. It’s a riyaz for actors. 

Though your debut film Gandhi, My Father won national awards, you didn’t make any more films after it. Why? I don’t know. I just stumbled into filmmaking. I wasn’t dying to make a film. I am very comfortable with theatre. But when the opportunity came to make a film, I dived into it completely. After Gandhi… I wanted to do my next film, Dekh Tamasha Dekh, a social and political satire. But somehow the recession came and people weren’t ready to back the film. So it took its time. I waited to do the film. It was something that I needed to get out of my system. Now I am open to doing more work in cinema. 

You’ve also done a play M a h a t m a V s Gandhi, based on Mahatma Gandhi. Why the obsession with the man? After making the film, Gandhi has become a companion. I think he is a yardstick for everything in life. He is someone holding your hand. So I access all works on Gandhi and read about him. What’s amazing is that when you think you know enough about the man, something new comes up. I am deeply affected by Gandhi. 

 

 TODAY AT PRITHVI FESTIVAL PRESENTED BY BOMBAY TIMES
PLAY: Moving Platform’s
    Salesman Ramlal DIRECTED BY: Feroz Abbas Khan TIME: 6 pm and 9 pm LANGUAGE: Hindi

Feroz Abbas Khan

Salesman Ramlal