Read it & make them weep

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Dramatised Readings are a strange thing. They are not quite fully mounted productions, and yet are often staged with great intricacy and stylisation.

Ever since the 1950s when Theatre Group Bombay would host “visual enactments” every month, this form of “story telling” has been popular in Bombay.
Dramatised readings serve many purposes.
Firstly it lets a piece of work to be “staged” without the headaches of mounting a full production. Secondly it allows writers to hear first-hand what their words sound like and how an audience responds to it, before it is shown to a paying audience. Thirdly, actors enjoy playing a new role, without having to give weeks for rehearsal.
At a time when English theatre in Mumbai was still very nascent, dramatised readings were a regular feature. Young playwrights found it difficult to convince directors or producers to stage their words rather than a Neil Simon’s or Goerge Bernad Shaw’s. But a staged reading was always low on investment.
Bilkiz Alladin managed to get her The Nabob read to a select crowd at the NCPA. As did Dina Mehta, whose Sister Like You had multiple performances of its reading avatar, directed by Jiten Merchant.
In fact, Jiten Merchant directed many intricately staged play readings in the 1990s and early 2000s. Antigone, The Dresser, Morning Becomes Electra — the list goes on. He enjoyed the directing, without the headache of producing or the financial risk.
Alyque Padamsee dramatised a series of Dina Mehta’s short stories using fantastic devices like a live camera. He also, during the reign of Indira Gandhi, directed a reading of Julius Caesar, with a woman (Usha Katrak) playing the title role.
Writer/director Shivani Tibrewala used half-a-dozen staged readings of her play HelpDesk to properly gauge audience reaction before finally going into proper rehearsal.
Having watched many staged readings in the past, I think that perhaps the key to a successful reading is “simplicity” and not to do too much. Many times directors get carried away with readings, and try to make them “productions” with actors holding the scripts. These often end up being untidy and clumsy.
Recently I went to catch the Dolly Thakore directed reading of Rantnakar Matkari’s 1 Safdarjang, charting the life of Indira Gandhi from the Emergency till her assassination. I got to the venue early and managed to catch the final rehearsal. The clumsiness of holding the script seemed to hinder the actors, who tried to move in and out of scenes.
Fortunately good sense prevailed. Actions and “blocking” was abandoned in favour of “just making the words work”. And work well they did.
At the final performance, we had direct access to the text, without the interference of movement.
The slides which placed each scene in its historic context worked well as the backdrop to the actors who performed splendidly with minimal movement.
The boom of theatre in Mumbai has resulted young authors finding it much easier to stage their work. There are also more venues available and audiences clamouring for more shows. This has led to the decline in popularity of the “staged readings”, which is a bit of a shame, because it has its own charm. I still vividly recall Jiten Merchant’s version of Taking Sides with Soli Marker as the conductor of the German Philharmonic Orchestra who is being tried as a Nazi sympathiser. It was so powerful that, that it outshone the film version which came out a few years later.
In 2012, Naseeruddin Shah directed a staged reading for Literature Live of James Thurber stories and Vikram Seth’s The Elephant and the Tragopan, with four actors sitting in a row. He didn’t want minimal stage craft so that the words could do what they were written for — excite the imagination.
Recently Gerson da Cunha put together a wonderful group of actors that brought the words of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone to life. So successful was the reading that there have been many calls for repeat performances.
So maybe the “staged reading” isn’t quite done yet.