Interview with Sunil Shanbag

Sunil Shanbag, theatre producer/director, television writer/producer, born October 7, 1956, graduated from the Elphinstone College, Mumbai. He worked as an actor/designer/ assistant director with Satyadev Dubey from 1974 to 1984 on about twenty-five productions. In 1985, he along with his group of friends became one of the founding members and artistic director of Arpana, a repertory company. This theatre company has been working consistently since its inception, doing an average of fifty performances a year. Plays directed by Sunil include Vijay Tendulkar’s CYCLEWALLAH, Mahesh Elkunchwar’s PRATIBIMB, Shafat Khan’s KISSE, Sayaji Shinde’s TUMBURA, Ramu Ramanathan’s COTTON 56, POLYESTER 84, etc.

Sunil has also been involved in training actors for many years as part of Arpana’s regular activity. This has often involved the use of workshop techniques to create performance pieces, including the live adaptation of literary texts into performances. Theatre-In-Education projects have been conceptualized by him. For one such project, he worked intensively with students of the Sahaydri school, situated near Pune and which comes under the aegis of the Krishnamurti foundation. Not only has Sunil conducted several workshops on theatre techniques but he has also dwelt on the question of performance spaces. One of his papers on alternative theatre spaces in Mumbai was presented at the Prithvi Theatre conference on Theatre and Space 2002.

Besides his continuous interest in the theatre, Sunil has worked extensively since 1985 for television , developing programme concepts, researching, writing fiction and non-fiction material, and producing programmes, films, and series. Some of his notable works include ‘Yatra’, directed and produced by Shyam Benegal, ‘Surabhi’ produced by Cinema Vision India and ‘Bharat Ek Khoj’ directed by Shyam Benegal. For ‘Yatra’, he developed and wrote, with Shama Zaidi, original scripts for a 14-part series dealing with two fictional railway journeys through the length and breadth of India. For the record-breaking, culture magazine program, ‘Surabhi’, he developed the core concept and saw its production for the first 72 weeks. And for the 54-part historical series, ‘Bharat Ek Khoj’, he was selected as the core group writer.

In 1993 Sunil turned independent producer with Setu films. His ‘Maihar Raag’ won him the National Award in 1994 for the best non-fiction film. The film, a 65-minute feature is on the legacy of Baba Allaudin Khan, one of India’s greatest teachers of music. Directed by Arunabh Bhattacherjee, the film also won an award for the best use of sound. As an independent producer, Sunil has quite a few films to his credit. In 2000 he set up Chrysalis Films, an independent film company. Already he has completed around eight projects with his company.

Sunil has even worked closely with Astad Deboo, a contemporary Indian dancer who has made his mark on the International stage and who is known for his eclectic style. He has not only created dance and design concepts for several of Astad’s major projects but has also done a 40-minute film titled ‘The Sword and the Spear’ which picks up Astad on a tour of Taiwan with his group of martial arts’ performers. The film as such explores the nature of a creative collaboration.

Sunil Shanbag’s work be it in the realm of theatre, film or television, speaks very well of not only his technical skills and his creative instinct but also of his acute awareness of socio-political issues. Here is a man whose body of work (not all of it is listed here) has continued to reflect the varaying concerns and ethos of our times.

In which year did your theatre company, 'Arpana' come into being? What drove you to find your own company?
Arpana came into being in 1985 I think … Shishir Sharma, Akash Khurana, Utkarsh Majumdar, Reetha Balsavar, and Lata Sharma … we were the founders of the group. All of us had been working consistently with Satyadev Dubey … I had by then worked with him for over ten years and had also started directing independently for Theatre Unit, which was Dubey's group at that time. So around 1985 Dubey gently, and firmly pushed us out of the comfort of Theatre Unit to forge our own identity.

Shishir's father gave us ten thousand rupees and Arpana was born ! Utkarsh directed our first play, OOLJULOOL, written by Adyarangacharya. Its interesting … I was quite out of it for a few years … I was going through one of my patches of keeping away from theatre … but I lit the plays, and occasionally stepped in as an actor.

I directed my first play for Arpana a couple of years later … by which time Akash had already done Mat Yaad Dila, which was like our flagship production for several years. Why did we found Arpana ? Well, Dubey forced us out, to begin with, but also because we needed to find our own voice, and the 80s was an exciting time for Hindi theatre in Mumbai … yes, believe it or not !

To date we have been able to see only three of the plays that have been directed by you- BADE BHAISAHAB and GARAM KAMRA, BANSURI and now Ramu Ramanathan's COTTON 56, POLYESTER 84. The one common quality that we found in all the three has been your ability to respect the text at hand and to therefore not impinge any form on it other than that is necessary. There is a certain kind of austerity that marks these plays. The actors' movements for instance are almost defined and limited. Lights again are judiciously used. Can you therefore offer us any insights into your creative process as a director? You can use any of your plays, perhaps the ones mentioned above as points of reference.
I believe that the form of a play already exists in the text. My job is to find it and reveal it. I respect the text … I am not reverential to it … that sums up my approach. For me the text is fundamental to the play. Sometimes the text speaks loud and clear, sometimes one has to listen very carefully.

Usually I hear the text speak in the voices of the actors. Which is why I begin thinking only when the actors start reading. I am happiest when all I have to do is to merely set up the conditions for a scene to work … no more than that. An actor placed in the right position, speaking at the right pitch … coming in at a particular moment, standing in a particular way.

Some scenes need just this much to work wonderfully. It all looks very simple eventually, but I strive very hard for that simplicity. Maybe that's what you refer to as being austere, and some people call minimalist.

The painted mural that forms the backdrop of COTTON 56…Was that your idea?
Yes, I think it was my idea … but it emerged out of discussions with the people who were involved in the design. I wanted a bare stage … but I also wanted a continuing presence through the play of the core idea. Vivek Jadhav who created the backdrop, and the painters who actually painted it, brought tremendous depth to the very basic idea I had come up with.

You are also a documentary filmmaker. Can any parallels be drawn between the art of making a film and the art of directing a play?
It's an interesting question … both documentary films and theatre require a sharp sense of observation of people. I enjoy doing that … in film and in theatre.

How were you initiated to the theatre? What were your early experiences like? Did you ever act in a play/s?
I was very into theatre in school … and we had some greats come and work with us – Roshan Seth, Dina Pathak (Ratna's mother) so I was hooked very early. But a chance encounter with Dubey in 1974 gave me the opportunity to work in the theatre in Mumbai. I was seventeen … still not in college. For the next ten years or more I worked with him … acting, helping with direction, lights, sets, the works. That was my training. It was very intense. We were a busy company, doing several plays simultaneously, sometimes doing as many as 70 performances a year in Mumbai and outside. During this period I finished college, and began working as a feature writer for magazines. I began in the theatre as an actor, and acted right up to 1986 or so.

So you can well be regarded as one of Satyadev Dubey’s protégés. Was the learning under him influential in guiding your director's ideology?
I like to think of myself as being from Dubey's gharana in the theatre ! I can tell you what I learnt from him … sure … the importance of text, of craft, of complete honesty to the work even if you stand the risk of being considered non arty ! The ability to deal with actors and get them to surprise not just others, but also themselves with their own performances ! What I didn't learn is perhaps more significant … I regret not being as much a person of ideas as he is … not being able to wrestle with text as well as he can … not having his all consuming passion for the work. But ideologically our journeys have been very different.

What do you have to say about the use of screens, projectors and other things related to the multimedia in the theatre?
I think everything is valid when it helps communicate the ideas. But sometimes all the tech can be very seductive and work against the play. I saw Measure for Measure recently and was disappointed that the fundamental ideas of the play did not come through. It was a very clever production but lacked soul. And the tech did that I think. It forced them to become too literal. Tech has a way of doing that.

What would be your advice to aspiring young directors for the stage?
I am not in a position to advice anyone, really. But I do know that too much theatre is notional … that is, the director has a notion about something, or an idea, and believes that having the notion is enough ! You know what I mean ? I think the challenge is how to realize that notion … to make it real for everyone not just for yourself. Secondly, I think directors need to learn to work with actors. They can be your strongest allies, or your worst enemies !

Observers of the Indian theatre scene lament over the lack of the playwright. They say that our theatre is largely guided by the director. What do you think about the same? How important or unimportant is the playwright to you when you are directing his/her play?
I think my approach to text reveals that for me the playwright's work is very important. But I don't like having the playwright around when I am doing the play, and I have been fortunate that no playwright has ever hassled me. I don't like having the playwright around because for me the process of rehearsal is the process of making the play belong to the people who are making the play – everyone, from the director to the actors, the design people and so on. This is for the good of the play, not because of some flatulent notion of superiority.

Theatre can be collaborative work at its finest … ! As far as original writing goes, more people are writing today in different languages than before. In the last twenty odd years most of the plays I have done have been original writing in some Indian language or the other.