An Act of Happiness

WHEN PUNE-BASED theatre company, Aasakta Kalamanch, was a young collective, they identified a piece of land in the Konkan to build a repertory. It bordered the ocean and was sheltered by trees. It seemed perfect but there was a chance that it would be swallowed up by the sea in 15-20 years. It is this possibility of transience that most intrigued director Mohit Takalkar. It is also an apt allegory for his practice; impulsive, transient, and pushing against the shore.

Over two decades in theatre, and 38 plays later, it is difficult to draw patterns in his work or to categorise his practice. Theatre maker Abhishek Majumdar calls him the crowning jewel of Indian theatre, and a thinker who finds critical problems and interesting solutions to them. “I was introduced to him as one of the shining beacons of Indian theatre. He is among the few who have lived up to that promise. If there is a definition of a genius, it is someone who can listen to his voice and Mohit has that,” he says. “Some people think in visuals, and some in words. Mohit thinks in theatre, in the form,” he adds.

The best one can do, is categorise Takalkar’s practice into seasons, a collection of three or four plays with a form and thought in common. Hunkaro, his 2022 production in association with Ujaagar Dramatic Association, was a rare, raw, non-linear attempt at storytell­ing without the frills. His next, Ghanta Ghanta Ghanta Ghanta Ghanta, a political play based on British playwright Sam Steiner’s Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons, on the rationing of words in a fascist regime, also broke conventions of narrative structure. Mallika Singh Hanspal won Best Actor in a Lead Role (Female) at the recent Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) for this dystopian play where the government forbids all citizens from speaking more than 140 words per day.

Takalkar’s most recent play, Love and Information, by British playwright Caryl Churchill, jointly produced by National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) which premiered last week, in Mumbai, turns dramatic writing on its head. Comprising over 50 scenes in sev­en sections, the play is devoid of central characters. The vignettes mirror the rapid pace of channel-hopping or scroll­ing through social media, highlighting potential implications for relationships in an era dominated by instant gratifica­tion and short attention spans. Choreo­graphed and designed to perfection, he reimagines every scene to fit a familiar, and sometimes bizarre world. The play reveals his grasp on human emotions, as much as on the medium. Love and Information is both, a spectacle and an intimate experience at the same time.

Much like his other recent work, an impulse, a brief but potent connection drew him to the play. “I had begun believing that love doesn’t exist, it is a myth, and has no value. It is information that you are mistaking for love. During rehearsals, I have come to think love ex­ists, in small truths and ways. You have to open your eyes and heart to see that. Everything else is information,” he says.

In his open rehearsal room, in a resi­dential building in Mumbai’s Lokhandwala, a small crowd gathered to execute the precise scenography the play requires. The cast is made up of 11 actors, and viewers were free to come and go, and be a part of his process. Everyone in the room had a voice and the makeshift stage was an actor’s play­ground. Takalkar isn’t instructive but the kind of director who will challenge the actors’ way, until the scene has achieved a mutually agreeable shape.

Jyoti Dogra, well-known theatre maker and performer, believes the open rehearsal room that she visited, is a mark of his generosity as a performer. “To be a part of the process even for a day, makes it yours in a small way. You are more en­gaged in the practice at large rather than being a consumer of it,” she says.

“Rehearsal rooms should be open. You may not know what it can do for a 20-year-old drama student or a 50-year-old theatre practitioner. I have become more open, gentle, and democratic,” says Takalkar who once ran a closely guarded rehearsal room. His experience as the deputy stage manager for Tim Supple’s India tour, where he spent 20 days observing rehears­als, brought about this change.

Takalkar’s journey in theatre was a happy accident. He first trained as a chef at the Institute of Hotel Management, Mumbai. He soon enough realised kitchens were not right for him. Films, owing to friends at Film and Television Institute of India, Pune (FTII), were the other option. “I was a shy person; acting was never on the cards. Direction and editing were always what I thought about,” he says.

On the insistence of veteran theatre artist and mentor, Dilip Vengurlekar, 22-year-old Takalkar directed Girish Karnad’s Yayati, for the Mahar­ashtra State Competition, which went on to win the award for the Best Play in 1999. In 2002, Takalkar decided to form the experimental theatre collective, Aasakta Kalamanch. Ashish Mehta, Sagar Deshmukh and Radhika Apte, were a few of the early members. Aasakta Kalamanch initially occupied a narrow experimental space amidst Marathi commercial theatre. But Takalkar was fast getting disillusioned with the classics and ‘plays set in a dif­ferent time’. “What is the point of doing plays that have been done before? It is a play written in the 1980s, why are we doing it in the 2000s?” he asks.

His search for new text led to an enduring partner­ship with writer-filmmaker Sachin Kundalkar. “They were very different from the Marathi tradition at the time. They were realistic and about relationships. They talked about sexuality openly and they were brave,” he recounts.

Then came Tu in 2007, a play that became a turning point for Aasakta Kalamanch. Written by Satee Bhave, it was based on 52 poems by Rumi. It had a bare stage and an aesthetic that would propel the theatre company, and Takalkar in an all-new direction.

In 2009, Takalkar bagged a Charles Wallace Scholarship to study drama at the University of Exeter. He trained under virtuoso Phillip Zarrilli and it brought about a paradigm shift in his practice.

He felt his way of looking at theatre was myopic, and decided to shut down his seven existing plays. His language had changed, and his work hereon would make its own rules.

Takalkar’s personal preoccupations changed too. “I got divorced and was at the age when you are done talking about relationships. Then, the political started inviting me,” he says. He directed Ramu Ramanathan’s Comrade Kumb­hakarna for the NSD Repertory in 2011.

ON ONE HAND, TAKALKAR’S world was expanding rapidly. There were new collaborators, new languages, and shows around the country. On the other hand, Marathi audiences had distanced themselves from him, viewing his work as depressing and intellectual. Takalkar doesn’t have many regrets, and has his share of complaints with the Marathi audience. “Even Marathi experimental work is put into a box, where you have to be sitting on moodas to watch,” he says.

The pandemic of 2019 deeply impact­ed Takalkar. It was a time to drop the old and think anew. Little did theatre au­diences know that his fatigue with the old way of doing theatre would result in the poignant Hunkaro. “I realised we weren’t listening, to others, or our voices. Hunkaro was the genesis of that feeling. It was time to throw away all the tricks and to just talk to the audience,” he says. Hunkaro won seven awards at META 2023 including Best Play and Best Original Script.

Dogra found the stillness in the play fascinating. “He uses it throughout the show, in a way that challenges the idea of stillness itself. It is so much more than the actors being seated in one place. It cuts through the dramaturgy, the de­sign, the lighting, and the graphs of the individual performers,” she says.

Ashish Mehta, trustee, Aasakta Kalamanch, and Takalkar’s collaborator for over two decades, adds, “Since Hunkaro, his practice has had a lot more rigour, both with the actors and the text.”

His rehearsal process seems endless and one is left wondering how it comes together for a comprehensive experi­ence. Award-winning actor Mallika Singh Hanspal (of Ghanta Ghanta Ghanta Ghanta Ghanta) admires Takalkar for both, opening up the rehearsal room to let everyone speak, and also for knowing when to withdraw that privilege.

It’s a delicate dance until the design takes shape. Design, Takalkar believes, is central and provides the framework for the play to rest on. It’s also the aspect that has evolved greatly in his practice and is having a moment of its own. Ghanta…, for instance, was performed underneath a suspended cottony cloud that pulsates with lighting in tune with the text.

Mehta says that while design has been integral to Takalkar’s practice, over the years it has become more definitive. “He knows what he wants from the design early on and every change thereafter is incremental. He has also become better at using starkness,” he adds.

It is difficult to foresee what Takalkar will do next on stage. He is self-aware, and political, but hardly sees theatre as a space ‘to make a point’. He has spent over two decades pushing the boundaries of form. Now, he is drawn to material that changes the idiom of performance from the text onwards.

“I was drawn to Love and Information and these British plays because they were breaking the mould, and changing the language of playwriting altogether. Un­less you do that, theatre won’t change,” he says, referring to the likes of Sarah Kane, and Sam Steiner.

His next work, he tells us, will be Anatomy of a Suicide by Alice Birch. “I am a suicide survivor, and the play speaks to me a lot. It also says things that I want to say,” he explains. Takalkar was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has been open about his struggles with it.

His first feature film as a director, the Marathi language Medium Spicy, released in 2022. His next Toh, Ti, Ani Fuji, is due for release. He has also essayed the role of a villain in Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy, which has already made its mark in the festival circuit. While at it, he also runs a successful cafe in Pune.

“My mainstay is happiness,” he says, in an unexpected cliché. “I wasn’t pay­ing attention to that before. I have had a long-standing mental illness, and I have been cruel to myself,” he adds.

He says, “Theatre I think will stop at one point for me. You don’t always get text that excites you. I am also seeing the audience becoming fickle. It’s giv­ing me joy right now, if that changes, I will stop. I am privileged that I can find happiness in more than one place.”

artGhanta Ghanta Ghanta Ghanta GhantaLove and InformationMohit Takalkar. social mediarelationshipstheatre