Theatre fest back with a classic, but in digital avatar

Gurgaon: Back in March, just as residents were looking forward to their spring date with the performing arts, organisers of the Gurgaon Utsav were forced to postpone the festival indefinitely in the face of the growing threat from the novel coronavirus. But endeavours of the heart cannot be stilled and the Utsav now returns – not at the amphitheatre with which we have come to associate it, but online.
Theatre director Feisal Alkazi is bringing ‘Teesri Kasam’ – Basu Bhattacharya’s engaging and empathetic 1966 romance-drama, featuring Waheeda Rehman and Raj Kapoor in the lead roles – to your laptops, tablets and smartphones, pre-recorded, in the first of a series of shows the Utsav is looking to host.
‘Teesri Kasam’, based on ‘Mare Gaye Gulfam’, a short story by Phanishwar Nath Renu, revolves around the lives of Hirabai, one of a travelling troupe of performers, and Hiraman, who lugs cargo on his bullock cart. One day, he is asked to take a passenger, Hirabai, on her way to a fair in which she is taking part. It’s a journey that births a friendship.
“I saw a production of ‘Teesri Kasam’ years ago at NSD, and that stayed in my mind. It’s the kind of story that lends itself to very intimate theatre,” Alkazi told TOI.
“I felt that the film had never done justice to the story. Raj Kapoor was much too old, and Waheeda much too young to play that role, because the woman who is the nautanki dancer has done over 300 shows.
“Also, we found that the short story would lend itself better to the medium, because in a short story there’s no need for a setting or for lighting – everything is there in the text itself.”
We’ll all be watching the play together, except, it won’t be at the same venue. Similarly, the actors – Radhika Alkazi as Hirabai, Jaipreet Singh as Hiraman – played their parts in different cities, in Delhi and Gurgaon, respectively.
Indeed, every Friday since May, on Zoom, Alkazi and members of his Delhi theatre group, Ruchika, have been pouring their talent and energy into events of different genres. “My actors can’t sit around for as long as Covid takes, they’ll all go rusty. Just as musicians do their riyaz, we have to go on perfecting and sharpening our skills and pushing ourselves,” Alkazi reasoned.
“‘Teesri Kasam’ lent itself to the medium of Zoom, because Zoom is all close-ups, it’s immediate. What they can disguise on the stage, you can’t cheat at all at home – you’re up very close and personal!”
Here, rehearsals are just as important as they are when the cast prepares for a show in an auditorium. “Everything that we do, we rehearse it thoroughly on Zoom, then we fine-tune the setting – so that it looks like they’re both more or less in the same place – and we fine-tune the lighting, to show light and day,” explained Alkazi.
“And we decided not to use any music at all other than the songs they actually sing live, because they’re both fine singers.” Do, then, keep an hour free on the evening of August 22 (7:30 to 8:30, on Gurgaon Utsav’s Facebook and YouTube pages) to revisit a love story for the ages. All being well, this digital phase is just an interregnum, before the patrons can gather under the stars again.