Stellar Players

Vishal Bharadwaj’s Omkara is an important film. It did many things, right. One of them being: Omkara plonked Shakespeare and Othello right into the mindscape of mainstream Indian cinema.
Curiously enough, in 1996, Sadanam Balakrishnan’s adapted Othello. It was staged by artistes from the International Centre for Kathakali, New Delhi. The dramatisation did not deviate from the traditional grammar; the padams were in manipravalam and the musical style, sopanam. The play had larger-than-life representation in Kathakali – enacted in front of the flickering flames of a brass lamp – captured the strong passions of the characters.
Bharadwaj achieves similar grand emotions by locating his tour de force in the cow belt of Uttar Pradesh.
But enough has been spoken about Omkara. The point is, prior to Omkara, Indian cinema has had an on-off affair with The Bard.
From Sohrab Modi’s 17-song interpretation of Hamlet in Khoon Ka Khoon in 1935 to Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, The Comedy of Errors have been adapted for Bollywood audiences.
“Hamlet was Kishore Sahu’s dream project. But it was a big flop,” recalls Mala Sinha, who played the film’s 18-year-old Ophelia. Romeo Juliet, also flopped. It was directed by actress Nargis’ brother, Akhtar Hussein.
Do Dooni Chaar, based on Comedy of Errors, flopped. The producer of film, Bimal Roy had a bout of cancer during the shooting. Therefore supervision was outsourced to United Producers. “Consequently, the film lacked spontaneity,” recalls Gulzar who penned the dialogues and screenplay for the film.
Over a decade later when he told producer Yash Johar about his desire to make another film on the same story, Gulzar received an interesting answer. “People want to remake superhits. Why remake a flop?” But the director-poet persisted with the idea and Angoor was made. It became a landmark film with superb performances from Sanjeev Kumar and Deven Verma.
Gulzar was tempted to produce a film on Julius Caesar. There are reports that Anant Mahadevan wants to film his version of Comedy of Errors. Meanwhile Vishal Bharadwaj’s Maqbool, bagged its share of critical accliam.
Apart from these Shakespeare adaptations, several other films have been partly inspired by the bard’s works. Film historian Firoze Rangoonwalla recalls that Dilfarosh, a 1930s film, was based on The Merchant of Venice.
Shades of The Tempest can be seen in the 1930s costume drama Aab-e-Hayat. And parts of Aan (Dilip Kumar Nadira), Ziddi (Asha Parekh, Joy Mukherjee), Dharamveer (Dharmendra, Zeenat Aman), Betaab (Sunny, Amrita Singh) are inspired by Taming of the Shrew.
Ashish Rajadhyaksha in the Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema credits Sohrab Modi with bringing “Shakespeare to the Indian screen.”
A Times of India review published on January 10, 1936 said that Modi’s performance in the Hamlet-based Khoon Ka Khoon dominated the film to the extent that “other characters did not matter much.”Rangoonwalla adds, “Modi told once me the film was shot with two cameras when the play was being staged. It was edited later. It was the first time such an experiment was done.”Besides the above versions, there have been performances of Hamlet in the North-eastern state of Mizoram; Sadanam Balakrishnan’s Othello in Kathakali; Roysten Abel’s multi-lingual play Othello a Play in Black and White, Jayaraj’s Kaliyattam, a Malayalam film version of Othello, and finally, Arjun Raina’s Magic Hour which plays with A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and Merchant Ivory Productions’s film, Shakespearewallah starring the Kendalls and Shashi Kapoor.
So, WHY does everyone who is anyone in the cinema and theatre fraternity, lend their ears to the Bard.
The ANSWER: The Bard is one of us.Purshottam Nedungadi, scholar-author from Calicut, Kerala (and the Dronacharya of my life) used to say, “Do not be intimidated by Shakespeare. He is one of us. He is basically, a moplah from North Kerala who is called, Sheikh Speare!”
Of course, Nedungadi was joking. The point is, Shakespeare has a longish relationship with India. Right from the moment, he was thrust down, imbibed, worshipped, subverted, and at times, rejected. The Shakespearean presence in India is older and more complex than in any other country outside the West. This can be attributed to India’s long colonial history, the presence of unusually receptive elements, and the absence of original playwrights in the local languages. So the local playwright or theatrewallah borrowed from the Master Bard and, in turn, were reshaped and inseminated by Shakespearean influence.
According to the Indian National Library in Kolkata in 1964, the translations and adaptations in Indian languages are: Bengali (128), Marathi (97), Tamil (83), Hindi (70), Kannada (66) and Telugu (62). I know for certain that Ayyappa Panicker and Kavalam Narayana Panicker have translated into Malayalam, 27 plays of Shakespeare. There are others.
Some of the Shakespearean highlights have been :
Agarkar’s version (adapted) of Hamlet. This was a production in which the great “prose” actor, Ganpatrao Joshi played the role of Hamlet. A young Bal Gandharva (yes, the very same) saw a show in Jalgaon and makes a special mention of Joshi’s reaction to the ghost. Later, Ganpatrao Joshi’s drama company staged “bookish” translations of Othello, Macbeth, and of course Hamlet.
But over and above the “natives”, the British were going about with Project Shakespeare. In 1903, Ms Elisa May and Ms Chloe Player (yes, they are addressed as Ms according to chronicles to give the ladies a certain respectability and distinguish them from the waifs who inhabited the stage) went to Deccan College (Pune) and read out Shakespeare plays in English for Rs 500! Then, in 1872, the students of Vishrambaug High School, staged Julius Caesar in their school courtyard. Later, pupils of Baba Gokhale School staged the Merchant of Venice. Also, students of Rajaram College performed Marathi versions of Romeo & Juliet and Merchant of Venice. This was on the prodding of Principal Prof Candy who awarded a prize of Rs 150. A lot of money for poor students in those days.
There have been innumerable British touring companies which performed Shakespeare. Old timers recall Tempest being staged at the Bandstand. It had Prospero emerging from the sea, and the fairies leaping out of trees. Theatre reviews speak glowingly of a British production of Hamlet at Capitol Cinema which was touring Mumbai around 1947-48. A Marathi critic said he had seen Ganpatrao Joshi’s Hamlet. But that was Ganpatrao Joshi in and as, Hamlet. This was the real thing.
Maharashtra’s Sangeet Nataka parampara was vibrant, but what is unknown is innumerable playwrights were influenced by plays of Shakespeare. For instance, there’s Khadilkar (there’s a street named after him in Girgaum, which is famous for sale of greeting cards and wedding cards). This is Krishnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar. He specialised in developing roles based on Hamlet and Iago. For eg, in Bhaubandaki, we have a hapless Peshwa who murders at the behest of a power hungry uncle & aunt. In Sawai Madhavvracha Mrittyu (Death of Sawai Madhavrao), is directly influenced by Macbeth and Richard II. Then there’s Keechakvadh (an allegory on the tyrannical regime of Viceroy Curzon). This play was banned! Again shades of the plays on Richard and Henry! Interestingly, Khadilkar was a gun-runner in Nepal, and was Tilak’s right hand man. He wrote potent edits in the Kesari.
The classic, Ram Ganesh Gadkari’s Ekach Pyala has a structure based on Othello. Its a tragedy. The husband starts to drink. But instead of jealousy, Gadkari introduces alcohol as a theme. Shakespeare has one community drinking scene, in its place Gadkari brings on stage, an entire gang of drunkards. And so, Taliram = Iago. Like Iago, it is Taliram who stuffs Othello with the spirits. And so on. Gadkari’s rendition has theatre craft! The legendary singer-actor, Bal Gandharva played the wife, at the grinding wheel, in the original production.
Vijay Tendulkar speaks very highly of Baburao Pendharkar in Jhunjarao (Othello). Curiously enough, P L Deshpande was playing the organ for the show. Organised by Mumbai Marathi Sahitya Sangh at the open air grounds of Marine Lines.
There are other versions: Vasant Kanetkar has done a khichdi version which incoporates 4 to 5 Shakespeare plays into one. And then there’s the Dalit playwright, Premanand Gajvi, who penned a play which was about a new play by Shakespeare (yes, the 39th play).
Speaking of Midsummer’s Night, there’s the ever popular version by Ratnakar Matkari which stars, Prashant Damle, the man who has completed 7777 shows. There’s also the all time favourite, Natsamrat. Penned by Vi Va Shirwadkar, this play was an adaptation of King Lear. In Natasamrat, the basic plot is more or less the same, but Shirwadkar has taken the liberty of incorporating soliloquies from other Shakespearean plays. Then there’s Raja Lear which has been brilliantly translated by the poet, Vinda Nabar and superbly performed by Sharad Bhutadia and his troupe from Kolhapur.
Arun Naik, translator narrates an interesting tale. There was an “illegal” Konkani production of Othello, based on Naik’s Marathi translation. Due to a typo in the script, there was one critical 10 minute scene in which Othello and Desdemona’s lines got inter-changed. The group had done many shows. And no one realised it.
That’s the magic of Shakespeare. His plots are like the stories from the Ramayana or Mahabharata. The minor glitches and goof ups, don’t seem to matter.
This magic of Shakespeare was something the Parsee Theatre had realised. The Parsee theatre manager, whose contribution to our theatre has been their remarkable sense of management and resources, set up a network of theatrical companies across India. They performed the plays in Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati – even, briefly, in English.
The playwrights (the backbone of any theatre movement inspite of what actors and producers may say) were: Ahsan Lucknowi, Radheshyam Kathavachak, Aga Hashr Kashmiri (who founded the Indian Shakespeare Theatrical Company, and liked to be called ‘the Indian Shakespeare’), Narayan Prasad Betab (who ran a magazine called Shakespeare to publish his versions), Shrikrishna Hasrab, Mahi Hasan and Tulsidas Saida.
The important plays were:
K Khusro Kabrazi, who founded the Parsee Nataka Mandali in 1853, presented Rustom and Sohrab in Grant Road Theatre (only one theatre in those days in Mumbai). On 29th October 1853. So that’s the unofficial theatre day for Mumbaikars.
On 21st December, 1867, they staged Comedy of Errors. This was a big event. The huge success of the play led to the formation of Victoria Theatre Company. This was backed by the richest patrons – who owed allegiance to Queen Victoria in a distant land and hence the name.
Right opposite the Victoria (in Grant Road), the very wealthy, Cooverji Nazar leased the Grand Road heatre building and set up the Elphinstone Dramatic Club. The Elphinstone Dramatic Club. produced two Shakespeare plays: Cymbeline translated by Nasraonji Khan as Alamgir. And then, King Lear as Bagobahar. Once again, the translator was, Nasraonji Khan.
Then there’s Amit Keshav Nayak (not Naik). After the split of Alfred Theatre in 1881, he started the Khatau-Alfred theatre with Cavasji Khatau. Nayak was an actor-manager. who studied in a Gujarati school but was proficient in Urdu. The first play the group did was Khoon-E-Nahak (based on Hamlet) written by Ahsaan Lucknowi. The roles: Hamlet = Cooverji and Hamlet’s mother = Nayak. Later, Agha Hashra Kashmiri penned plays for the duo. He penned Bajmephaani (inspired from Romeo & Juliet). and so on. Hashra wrote four more plays.
There are many more.
The main thing is, the Bard lives because his plays are the thing! As Vijay Tendulkar says “Life is poorer without Shakespeare and we should meet him at a stage when we are ready for him.”