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Entertainment
All about pride and conquering
Dipanker Mukherjee. — Pic. by K. Gajendran.
DIPANKER MUKHERJEE runs his fingers through his long locks. "I am still very much a Madras boy. I went to school here and to college. My parents live here. I come every year, I draw my strength from here." This is also where he made his commitment to theatre. During his first year at Madras Christian College he co-founded a theatre group, Direct Media. There was no money but that did not stop them, Mithran Devanesan did sets for them anyway. He also did street theatre, Bengali and Hindi plays, worked with Sushma Ahuja... all of it in good ole Madras.
Then Dipanker flew the coop. He did his Masters in Fine Arts in England. He worked in South Africa. He added to his experience at the Young Vic in London. He moved to the United States where he played big budget as the Resident Director of Guthrie Theatre. He learned from his gurus Athol Fugard, Badal Sircar, A. K. Ramanujam... He became the artistic director of Abhinaya Theatre, a podium for artistes of Indian origin. And then eight years ago, along with his wife, Meena Natarajan (also an MCC alumni), founded Pangea World Theatre in Minneapolis. An international centre for theatre, "It invites artistes from different ethnicities and countries to come together." Pangea is a well-managed company with increasing donor support and comfortable operational budgets. Low budget productions challenge him even more, "I still love street theatre which is nothing but body and space. I have arrived at a very interesting tension between these two huge opulence and having nothing but body and voice." He is thrilled to be back in Chennai, directing for the Madras Players Mohan Narayanan's play "Ashwaha."
``Ashwaha" looks at the impact of globalisation on our everyday life. Characters from Indian and Greek mythology take the discussion forward, while the motif of the Trojan Horse gives the epic dimension.
Dipanker saw immense possibilities in the text. "Its about pride and conquering. I saw in it mythology from the contemporary point of view." He started work in Pangea style, taking the group through the process of developing the text. They explored the text pictorially and came to terms with its complexities. The six-strong cast has become a 30-strong ensemble.
The horse came to life with 20-odd actors breathing to the rhythm of live chenda and kalari movements. Through the horse he has given the play its epic dimensions. "The horse will move with such passion and power, it will not be just aesthetic. There will be something exquisite about it... "
If the rehearsals are any indication, ``Ashwaha" is going to be a spectacular show with great music and choreography, impressive costumes and stunning lighting. Actors find the whole exercise of allowing the play to evolve, interesting. Dipanker is beginning to understand how difficult amateur theatre is in Chennai today. Dipanker remembers that back in his college days, the Madras Players were "up there" and he wouldn't dare even ask to be part of the group. Today his mission statement is, "I want to do theatre, and I want to create an exchange between Madras artistes and the Pangea World Theatre. His hard work has paid off and he is proud of it. "I have worked very hard. I have negotiated with race, I have negotiated with class, I have negotiated with gender, and I have worked very, very hard," he says.
ELIZABETH ROY
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