The cons of pro theatre

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It is no secret that theatre in Maximum City is “booming.” There are more troupes, plays, designers, actors, reviews (albeit on line), audiences and spaces than ever before in the theatrical history of our tiny island.

It is a great time to be working in theatre. There are plenty of jobs for actors, stage managers, production managers and administrators; that allow you to survive in an arts career. This was unheard of a few years ago.
The theatre landscape used to be quite barren. Not because of the lack of passionate people, but because of the absence of an audience. Back then, Gujarati theatre actors used to mock the “tradition” of English and Hindi plays reaching 25 shows.
But since the late 90s, theatre has erupted, and a house-full board is a regular sign. Today, there are plenty of English and Hindi plays that have crossed hundred and even two hundred performances.
But in our success, have we lost some of the simple joys offered by a life in the theatre?
A few months ago, I sat in a drawing room in Bengaluru. Nimi Ravindran and her brother Vinod were hosting a few of us who were on tour to the Garden City with our play, So Many Socks.
It was a relaxed evening, of sharing theatre stories and laughing about the idiosyncrasies of each other’s cities.
Mid-way through the evening, I realised, that it had been ages since I had just “hung” out with theatre people. It doesn’t seem to happen any more in Mumbai.
It used to happen, but these days it seems that there always needs to be an agenda to meet — either an occasion (cast party, birthday, anniversary, etc.) or work (discussion about spaces, rents, dates, working on each other’s shows, etc).
When I was a young theatre-wala growing up in the city, I remember avid conversations with Atul Kumar over chai, Akarsh Khurana over butter chicken, and Jehan Manekshaw over dinner, to name a just few. These were freewheeling meetings with no pre-planning or even agenda. They were instrumental in my growth as a director and for the forming of an unofficial theatre fraternity, where we care about each other’s work and help the other achieve their goals.
It was meetings like these that allowed groups to break away from their “fiefdoms” and share actors, props and even dates. Today, Atul and I have been threatening to meet for over a year, Akarsh and I have made several lunch plans which both of us have forgotten about, and Jehan and I only seem to make time when we have a meeting agenda emailed in advance. I miss my “amateur” status when I could pick up or answer the phone and parties at both ends of the line were “free.” The high volume of work is largely responsible for this. Some groups are able to stage 150 performances a year of their bouquet of plays.
Factor in rehearsals and anything else to “make money” and it is understandable why actors, directors and producers have very limited social lives. But this busyness has also led to a more worrying artistic trend.
Earlier on, a performance was “gold.” It was sacrosanct, partly because it was so rare. In today’s theatre scenario, the excitement with which we approach each “show day” has dulled. Shows are now almost under-rehearsed. And content choices are largely based on the “bums on seats” principle. At eighteen working backstage on a show, I realised there no place in the world I would rather be.
I never imagined that the theatre fraternity would become so large, and so busy. It is a dream, come true. But now at thirty five, I wish for a simpler time, a more passionate time — a time when we came to the theatre not only to “work”… but also to “play.”