Sulena Majumdar Arora

All these four artists are part of Zee Theatre’s teleplays.
– Saurabh Shukla is part of  Zee theatre’s ‘Khamosh Adalat Jaari Hai.’
– Dilnaz Irani is seen in Zee theatre’s ‘Shireen Shah.’
– Geetanjali Kulkarni is part of Zee theatre’s ‘Piya Behrupiya.’
Joy Sengupta  stars in the Zee Theatre’s teleplay Womanly Voices, Ladies Sangeet.

Saurabh Shukla:
1) What is the importance of theatre according to you?
★ ★ For a theatrist , theatre has exactly the same importance as life. And  I include audiences in the term, ‘Theatrist’  as well.

2) How is the medium adapting to changing times and change in consumption of entertainment today?
★ ★ I’m not an analyst, so I’m not the right person to answer that. I’m a practitioner so I just keep living. It’s like asking a human-being how life has changed over a thousand years. You won’t be able to figure it out. Yes, of course, you have  history to refer to and of course, the evolution of life itself is based on change but   only some historian or analyst can analyze the extent of that change accurately. I’m  absolutely not the right person for that.

3) Would you agree that theatre is more powerful in terms of its impact on the minds of the audiences vs any other medium?
★ ★  There’s a wonderful sequence in a film called ‘Fame’ by director Alan Parker where a student  in an art school  dabbles in different art forms. When he goes to dance classes, he is told this is the best form of art. When he goes to drama classes,  he is told that theatre is the amalgamation of all arts on one platform. And finally, when he goes to the music class, the music teacher says that music beats all other art forms.  So, if I’m doing theatre, then of course for me, theatre is the highest form of art but  the same holds true for poetry, music,  dance,   painting,  and cinema. So whatever  your chosen discipline is, it becomes the best form of  self-expression.

Dilnaz Irani:
1) What is the importance of theatre according to you?
★ ★ I feel theatre, as a  form of training, offers you more than what a drama school,  academic studies,  a workshop, or  a film set can teach you. A theatre project  gives you the experience that nothing else can match. It’s not just the actual craft that you learn but also commitment,  hard work,  camaraderie and synergy that turns colleagues into your family. So this experience is not just valuable for actors but   people in every field and that is why now we have theatre workshops  for corporate professionals where theatre exercises  are used  as ice breakers.

2) How is the medium adapting to changing times and change in consumption of entertainment today?
★ ★ I think the perfect example of how theatre as a medium is adapting and evolving to keep up with  the changing times is  Zee theatre. The fact that now  a play can be recorded and is accessible to so many more people is incredible. Post the pandemic,  people want to just sit at home and watch stuff and today Zee Theatre is beaming plays right into their living rooms.

3) Would you agree that theatre is more powerful in terms of its impact on the minds of the audiences vs any other medium?
★ ★ Well, I don’t want to be biased and say that theatre is  most powerful in terms of its impact. It really depends on the content. If the content offered by the theatre is great then yes, of course, it’s going to be more powerful, but the same holds true for cinema as well.  Much as I love theatre, and owe so much to my theatrical experiences, I still feel it would be a bit biased of me to choose only theatre above all other art forms.

Geetanjali Kulkarni:
1) What is the importance of theatre according to you?
★ ★ I think theatre is very important because it’s a very organic medium of expression for humanity and it is the oldest form of telling stories. Even when language was not developed, through sounds,  body language, expressions, and gestures, human race always wanted to share their experiences and stories, and it is also very important in today’s time because it channelizes our emotions, it gives a way to our expression, questioning ourselves, society, the system, relationships, traditions. So I think that catharsis is needed for any society.

2) How is the medium adapting to changing times and change in consumption of entertainment today?
★ ★ It’s a very simple and easy way of expressing and telling the story. It just needs one performer and one spectator and you do theatre, there is no need for anything else. So I think it is more important in today’s time when we are very much dependent on technology and modern appliances. So today theatre and live performance have become more important for us.

3) What message would you give to your audience on world theatre day?
★ ★ I think that theatre is an important part of our life. We tell stories from our childhood, we listen to the stories. So theater, its expression is very organic to hthe uman race. It doesn’t need any technology or any other modern amenities to do theater. It can be done anywhere and I think it helps society to channelize many emotions. Its live performances are very necessary, I feel, for a healthy community, so we should do theatre in schools and colleges, at home, in our community centers. It’s a wonderful way to channel society as emotions, I feel.

4) Would you agree that theatre is more powerful in terms of its impact on the minds of the audiences vs any other medium?
★ ★ It leaves an impact on the audience. I have worked with children, and to read and to write, we used theatre as a medium and it not only helps to connect with the audience. It creates that world and that world helps for catharsis. It leaves an impact. In fact, there are many studies that also say that theater has helped them in many different ways, helped people going through depression, and they’ve done theatre with criminals in jails and it has helped them. So I think it’s a very good way of channelizing your emotions.

5) Do you think theatre makes more space for radical, feminist stories than cinema?
★ ★ I don’t know whether it gives more space for radical or feminist stories or not than cinema. It depends who does it, why you do theatre and where you do theatre, if you are doing political theatre, if you’re doing theatre for community, then it can create space for questioning the system, for raising issues, for raising voice, but not necessarily it always does that and not necessarily cinema doesn’t do that. There are many films which have raised an issue about politics it, many films that voice for human rights or women’s rights, but as I said, theatre is not an expensive medium, it is more easy to do theatre, it has the capacity to be more, to reach out to people without much of investment, financially, it is more viable. So it has that power, to reach out to communities, to reach out to people, to reach out to children and it can be done anywhere. So I think that’s why theatre has that power. Cinema, because it’s dependent on a lot of things, it is difficult to make a film. Theatre is more accessible, more viable, more available. That’s why it has the capacity to raise voice, against any violation of human rights or any violation of women’s rights, so it has that capacity.

Joy Sengupta
1) What is the importance of theatre according to you?
★ ★ Even when you are playing a character on stage, you are embodying the character’s emotional and psychological self, belief and ideology which eventually becomes a part of your personality. You are responsible for communicating the essential idea that the playwright and the director want to communicate through the play and those ideas are always bigger than the individual, they are universal and timeless. Those are ideas about the human condition and human experience and that’s what an actor in theatre does and is.

2) How is the medium adapting to changing times and changes in the consumption of entertainment today?
★ ★ The medium of theatre has survived because of its immediacy and potency. Theatre is a performing art, it’s a medium of direct communication to the audience because the audience comes into theatre or into a space where theatre is being done and gets directly impacted, affected and communicated to. An extremely effective and energized interaction happens between the audience and the actor. Many essential issues concerning human beings, whether it’s in day-to-day life in a philosophical light, or in the social or political space, all of that get interacted with, and interchanged in the medium of theatre. Therefore, it doesn’t need to change per se, but of course, the forms of theatre keep evolving in different periods of time according to different kinds of audiences that come in a particular time. Theatre also evolves according to the various kinds of socioeconomic environments. Even technological changes impact theatre and theatre also adopts these technologies. There will be classical, folk, and modern theatre forms and modern/contemporary theatre will have various other sub-forms. Contemporary forms of theatre can be performed inside or outside a proscenium, it could be individual or community-based, vis-a-vis set and technology, vis-a-vis blank space, and it could be performed through music or dance. It could also be purely visual with just two spoken words or no words. So form will always keep evolving so as to reach and influence the audience effectively. However, the material can be very old. One can pick up a Greek, Shakespearean, or Sanskrit classical play, but adopt a contemporary form or method which is most effective for the XYZ generation coming today to the theatre.

3) What message would you give to your audience on world theatre day?
★ ★ My message to the audience on World Theatre Day would remain the same. We are human beings, we interact with each other,  learn from each other and we are strong when we are together. We cannot survive without social interaction and social activity. And theatre is the epitome of human and social interaction, social activity, and being together and strong. It is the place and the space, which is dynamic, fluid, and free. Therefore, it represents the ultimate free spirit of humanity. So patronize theatre, go to the theatre, and encourage your children to participate in this art form. Whether your child wants to become an actor or not, just participation is good enough for their empowerment, mind, body, and social relations.

4) Would you agree that theatre is more powerful in terms of its impact on the minds of the audiences vs any other medium?
★ ★ Theatre is a medium that is impure in its essence. It involves various other art forms, there is the art of writing, the art of acting, the art of painting, or the art of direction as we know it. There is also the art of music, the art of dance, the art of lighting and sound, and of course, emotions. All of that goes on to make theatre and drama what it is. So taking together all these, theatre becomes the strongest art of all. And why does it amalgamate all art forms? It is because it wants to become the most potent, crystal-clear voice of emotion, spirit, reason, sensitivity, empathy, challenge, imagination, creativity, and social interaction and it does become that. A potent and successful play is actually the most potent and successful social interaction, socio-political communication, and exchange of raw emotions and energy.

5) Do you think theatre makes more space for radical, feminist stories than cinema?
★ ★ Cinema is a mass medium that is overtly dependent on market forces for its funding, production, marketing, and its success. Therefore the market or the status quo, a lot of times determines the shape and the tone of the film. If there is something very radical, complex, and provocative that could be diluted and compromised, those controversial elements can be deleted from the cinema, but not in the theatre. Theatre works in a space that is completely independent of all these market elements. Even if there is direct involvement in the market, theatre works only when it is challenging, provocative, disturbing, direct, and brave.