By Sukant Deepak

January 8, 2023 (IANSlife) After almost more than a decade, theatre director Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry, recipient of the Padma Shri honour, known for her devised productions and not working with bound scripts will be staging Girish Karnad’s ‘Hayvadan’ that will premier in 2023.

While she has already staged the late playwright’s ‘Nagmandala’ thrice, ‘Hayvadan’, a complex play tough to approach without much infrastructure support, research, musicians, and a certain backdrop has been made possible by Bangalore-based Bhoomija Trust, with the support of Aadyam (The Aditya Birla Group).

With shows lined up in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Singapore and Abu Dhabi, Chowdhry feels it will be a year-long commitment and is pleased that the private sector is doing its bit for the arts. “While it has always been the case in the West, the corporate sector in India is finally waking up. And frankly, funds have not come from the Ministry of Culture for many years now. The endless paperwork they demand can be exhausting and demeaning.”

Well-known theatremaker Deepan Sivaraman will be doing the scenography for the play. “He is someone I have worked with earlier too. It is always a pleasure to work with a brilliant mind like him who is forever ready to experiment and consistently pushes boundaries.”

A little apprehensive when asked to work on a bound script again, the director says the reason that she started doing devised work and not work with a text with definite structure --beginning, middle, and end -- was because she had done enough of that and wanted to explore newer realms by pulling texts from various sources.

She asserts while it may seem like an adventure, the process is quite trying as the director has nothing to hold on to or fall back on. “ Moving away from the well-made play was not a rejection, but a desire to delve into the unfamiliar. So after 10 years of working without a bound script when I am suddenly asked to do it, I thought I had lost the tools of exploring something that is wordy with well-defined characterization and plot developments. Thus, it was a challenge I just could not ignore. And frankly, in today’s times, not many people get the opportunity to do a play that is being funded, and someone is providing the infrastructure and organizing shows.”

‘Hayvadan’ is a play that has interesting references, based on an old Sanskrit text, mind and body; duality, gender, desire, and imagined perfection. The whole text is premised on the fact that 'perfection' does not exist. There are metaphorical and philosophical questions of what is more powerful -- the mind or the body.

“These are questions that are explored and they’re difficult things to communicate. And Girish Karnad being a mastermind has effectively woven the text in a manner that is challenging and designed for the theatre of the 1970s. When you look at the text in 2023, there are certain areas that were not okay in ‘73 and are still not okay at all for me as a woman. For example, a character talking about becoming a Sati. Somewhere I feel why would a man as liberal as Karnad use a resolution which was so old-fashioned and regressive.  I am also trying to rework the text and tossing it up. I have thought of certain things and how it led to that moment is still being explored.”

Stressing that whatever text is picked up, it is interpretative and words are just not words but also pauses and weightage, she says while all the devices used in the production are traditional -- hand-held curtains and chorus, but within the traditional framework, she is trying to use tableaus and stills. “Which to me is an interesting thing that I have discovered. With a cast of 12-13 people in the music box, which is not static, there are 10 actors on the stage. This is my homage to Karnad who treated me so well. Also to my beloved friend, B.V Karant, and his music of ‘Hayvadan’, in both the Kannada and Hindi versions. However, I have tried to deconstruct the sound patterns, for example by using the saxophone, which can take you to another realm.”

With Vansh Bhardwaj, who has been working with her company for years now as the Associate Director of the play, Chowdhry feels that the music by Amod Bhatt, recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi award has added a new dimension to the production. “We were together in Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, where he used to work with the legendary BV Karanth. The actors are quite mesmerized by him. While he may have been taught by Karanth, he has surely developed his own language and needs to be celebrated much more.”

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