Meet the absent young Indian playwrights

ldquoAll the worldrsquos a stageAnd all the men and womenmerely playersrdquoIn todayrsquos world of playing parts one wonders who dons the role of writing them as we read out aloud this dialogue by William Shakespeare After Vijay Tendulkar Girish Karnad and Mahesh Dattani of how many young playwrights do you hear nowadays Is talent on the wane or the stage is failing to attract the scribe in the spotlight anymore Last calculated we were 127 billion but how many do you hear introducing themselves as writing plays as their vocationA performance still from the play Disconnect at the Royal Court London penned by the Chennaibased playwright Anupama Chandrasekhar Pic courtesyTristram KentonScene 1Rahul da Cunha theatre director begs to differ ldquoOther than Tom Stoppard every playwright in the world has had to do something on the side They hold day jobs write formake films or teach to sustain themselves Even Tendulkar was making movies throughout his careerrdquo The challenge lies in writing for the ldquomobile phone audiencerdquo today that he feels has noidentifiable point of contact to go and attend a playRajit Kapur right and Ali Fazal in the play Djinns of EidgahTheatre critic Sumedha RaikarMhatre opines quoting Tendulkar who also wrote for the Marathi newspaper Loksatta that playwrights manage to touch the subject but find it difficult to grasp the complexity of real life She stresses ldquoIt is more difficult for todayrsquos generation as city life has grown fourfold in complexity There arefew good plays that one can speak of Writing about such experiences isnot easyrdquoA still from the performance of Djinns of Eidgah by Abhishek Majumdar that is rated 4 out of 5 stars in the British newspaper The GuardianSee the differenceYoung playwright Anupama Chandrasekhar loves precisely this ldquoIndia is a complex country with complex issues We are underestimating our audience by not exploring those complexitiesrdquo The Chennaibased Chandrasekhar holds the distinction of having her play Free Outgoing have 75 shows in the UK Her mettle is further validated by the fact that she was a runnerup for the prestigious London Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright and a finalist for the Whiting Award UK and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize US mdash making her the first Indian to be nominated for any of these awardsA still from Satellite City by Irawati KarnikYet despite bagging several awards Chandrasekharrsquos play Disconnect hasnrsquot even been picked up by any of the Indian directors She rues ldquoLack of institutional support writer grants and since I live in Chennai Irsquod also add lack of exposure to quality theatre particularly international and nonTamil Indian languages are other grouses of being a playwright Also the lack of corporate interest in theatre leave alone in serious social playsrdquois problematicWrite it rightWriters Bloc is one of the few writing programmes that invites talent from across the country Rage Theatre conducts it in association with British Council Royal Court Theatre UK and Jindal South West Foundation Speaking of their own initiations into dramaturgic writing Majumdar and Chandrashekhar discovered the joy of writing for the stage in the writing programme conducted by Mahesh Dattani Mumbaibased Irawati Karnik on the other hand blossomed as a playwright as Chetan Dattar gave her the requisite pushLeft to right Rahul da Cunha Shernaz Patel and Rajit Kapoor at Patelrsquos residence PICSHADAB KHANIn a rare interview with mumbaitheatreguidecom the iconic Satyadev Dubey discusses playwriting with Dattar Satish Alekar Ramu Ramanathan Vijay Tendulkar and Mahesh Elkunchwar whose works he also honed They speak of a time when Dubey had conducted a playwriting workshop in 1973 The current status of such initiatives is that now there is no playwriting course in the National School of Drama informs Majumdar Karnik who finds repose in writing for Marathi experimental theatre in Pune laments that since Dattarrsquos demise there is a huge void in theatre that she has been grappling withMultiple rolesThe irony remains that the playwright holds no validity as a character in the real world Despite favourable reviews and training several of Writers Bloc playwrights such as the mentioned three adjust to the ground reality in their own ways Majumdar is now a director and has gone on to establish Indian Ensemble that also has a repertory which will also be hosting a threemonth playwriting programme in January Hoping for change he points out ldquoIndia has no cultural policy when it comes to the arts Even Cuba and Chile mdash countries with lesser budgets have more concrete funding ofdrama schoolsrdquoWriters Bloc 3 churned out notable playwrights such as Abhishek Majumdar Purva Naresh Irawati Karnik Annie Zaidi and a host of others that currently are not getting adequate applauseKarnik shares that playwriting for her has to be qualitative She has never hoped to reap any income out of itChandrashekar observes ldquoYes I have at several times in the past considered abandoning playwriting because of the lack of opportunities money and recognition In Chennai especially theatre has long ceded primacy to music and dance But I love theatre too much to give it up completelyrdquoKarnik says ldquoMumbai theatre has too much of proximity to cinema and thus most writers get pulled into either writing for the television or filmsrdquo a point that is seconded by da CunhaExpert speakResistance to commercial pressures can only happen if love for theatre is instilled in people since their childhood drills Patel A concerned da Cunha haplessly enquires ldquoTell me where is theatre in our lives now People abroad only go to watch musicals and here a recentlypublished article says that standup comedy is soon going to take over English theatrerdquoCarl Miller with actors Kunal Roy Kapoor Anand Tiwari and Shernaz Patel during Writers BlocShe raises the question of how many plays are getting published or are inculcated in universities across India Only two Indian awards ostensibly recognise the art of playwriting ie The HinduMetroplus Playwright Award and Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards The resultant of this is that Penguin Books in association with The HinduMetroPlus published Majumdarrsquos work whereas most others get lost as soon as they go out of production Patel informs ldquoWriters Bloc published plays with Hachette India toordquo but other than that recent plays have not become published worksComing to the point of Indian universitiesrsquo syllabus most remain unchanged failing to get campus theatre to pick contemporary pieces of writing With names like Paresh Mokashi Sachin Kundalkar and Vikram Kapadia stuck between screenplay and playwriting it is time the young dramaturgist gets its due