Detective Nau Do Gyarah is based on Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 crime thriller, The 39 Steps.Theatre director Atul Kumar has withdrawn his play, Detective Nau Do Gyarah, from the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) after a fellow theatre person, Yuki Ellias, accused him of plagiarism.
On Friday, Ellias posted on Facebook: “Its script is not just inspired by the Hitchcock film, The 39 Steps, but also is a scene-by-scene copy from the Samuel French published stage version. The set design, costumes, staging, whole scenes, props… much seems to be too similar to the many YouTube videos of 39 Steps.”
She added that in Kumar’s play, “the iconic miniature boat with handheld lights on it” was also recognisable from director Ariane Mnouchkine’s work. “Is The Company Theatre’s production an official adaptation with permissions given by the publishers? If so, there are no credits given to the original novel by John Buchan and play by Patrick Barlow. Or are we to understand that Detective Nau Do Gyarah is a complete original work?”
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Kumar responded in a Facebook post on Saturday: “The resemblances of certain scenes, plot and style of production in Detective Nau Do Gyarah to Marie Aitken’s West End production were in discussion with the representatives of the rights-holders and original producers of the stage version of Buchan and Hitchcock’s 39 Steps by Patrick Barlow. Having presented them with a scene-by-scene breakdown and our structure that aligns and departs at different junctures with their stage version, we arrived at 4-5 scenes that bear a strong resemblance to the West End production. The rest of our six-seven scenes do not appear in their stage version at all.”
He added he had a letter from the representatives indicating that “the production may continue ‘as is’, without the issue of any further credits or citation”.
Detective Nau Do Gyarah is based on Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 crime thriller, The 39 Steps.
Both Ellias and Kumar have been META winners in previous years. “During the nomination, a clarification about source material was sourced from Kumar, and he shared the letter from the producers stating they had no objection to Kumar continuing with the production. On that basis, the play was nominated. While we understand Kumar’s reason for now withdrawing it, the larger issue that needs to be debated is the line between inspiration and plagiarism. We will stand by his decision,” said Sanjoy Roy, MD, Teamwork Arts and Producer (META).
