Changing trends: Days of the big cast are back

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The other day, as I flipped through the mindless television channels, I heard a film actor comment about how much fun it was to do a multi-starrer film.
This is not really a concept we have in theatre. We don’t quite have stars. We have actors, unless they are film people who happen to be doing theatre. A Randeep Hooda, Sandhya Mridul, KK Menon, Naseeruddin Shah have all worked in theatre quite earnestly, but they are still FILM stars in theatre, not theatre stars.

That very evening I happened to overhear two young women argue about whether Namit Das was in a new play or not, and if he was how come he hadn’t mentioned it on his Facebook status? It does beg the question, maybe theatre does have “stars”?
However in the theatre, a “multi-starrer” means a play with many actors. A luxury traditionally afforded to children’s plays, classics from the Mahabharat and Ramayan, or Shakespeare and the Greeks. The older Hindi repertory theatre companies often staged plays with many actors so that everyone gets to be on stage.
Similarly, when directing in college, the aim was to have as many characters as possible, so “everyone got a chance”. But in the more “professional” setting, the economic reality takes precedence — more actors equal to more costs per show, more cups of tea at rehearsal, and more schedules to coordinate before a rehearsal or a performance can be programmed. I suffer a similar headache as producer of The President is Coming and we have a cast of “only” 10.
Companies that relied on “freelance” actors began staging smaller plays. Modern playwrights seem all too aware of the commercial aspects of theatre, and therefore limit the number of their characters so that the play has a strong chance of being staged, rather than being branded “unstageable” because of its large cast.
Mahesh Dattani, Shiv Subrahmanyam, Ram Ganesh, Siddharth Kumar, Anuvab Pal all began writing plays with more manageable numbers. In Hindi too, the early work of Manav Kaul and Makarand Deshpande is testament to this. The result was monologues, small family dramas, and other such scenarios where large casts were not required. However, recently, over the last two years this trend is inexplicably changing. New playwright Purva Naresh populates her plays with scores of actors, qawwali singers and musicians. Manav Kaul’s latest offerings Red Sparrow and Laal Pencil have huge casts. Makarand Deshpande’s latest Sona Spa has 20 performers, even though there are parts that can easily be “doubled” up by the same actors. This is a very exciting new trend. And a renewed “resplendence of people” is being brought back to the small experimental stage. But what of the logistical hassles — marrying everyone’s schedules, touring across the country, etc.
Flying in the face of that concern is Sunil Shanbag’s freakishly successful Stories in a Song is a team of 26 people, and they have been touring and performing profusely these last few months. A ripple effect of this is also beginning to be felt in the English-language theatre. AKvarious with their “almost” repertory style group are constantly touring Rafta Rafta and Baghdad Wedding. Meherzad Patel too scripts large casts in his plays Class Act and Rusty Screws. And recently Ayesha Menon’s Pereira’s Bakery is also a large cast.
The costs of materials and sets and equipment are burgeoning. Perhaps the only way to counter this inflation is with the dedication of people. Full-time actors now seem much happier to forego a shoot or reschedule an audition if it means being on stage. The only downside: the unnecessary curtain call introductions now take up to 10 minutes — completely hijacking that lovely ritual of mulling over the play in your head as you leave the hall.