The lived images
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Odakalu Bimba, a play that was simultaneously made in three languages, will have its 25th show this weekend
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MULTITASKING Arundhati Nag: ‘It’s a lonely experience’
Arundhati Nag’s association with theatre has been long. She started acting when she was 16 with IPTA, which was not just known as a premier theatre group but also as one with activist inclinations. Arundhati has performed in over 1100 shows in
seven different languages and has also acted in films in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil and English. After a fairly long break, Arundhati returned to theatre with Girish Karnad’s “Odakalu Bimba”. The play stages its 25th show this weekend and it is at once a moment of introspection and of achievement.
For someone who has been part of major theatre movements like IPTA, what does it mean to do solo performances such as Odakalu Bimba?
By the time I joined IPTA, its activist days were mostly over. It had acquired a Bollywood respectability. But even with their involvement with films, the actors continued to be involved with theatre. Kaifi saab was involved with IPTA till his very last. Though he couldn’t do much physically, cerebrally he was still active. When I took on “Odakalu Bimba”, I never set out to say I’m a fantastic actor or anything. But since it was a Ranga Shankara production and Girish insisted I should play the part, I took it up. It’s a very difficult play, unlike “Tumhari Amrita.” It’s literally trapped in your own image kind of scene. It is not even a solo performance in that sense – one is a recorded performance, while the other one is live.
It’s a very expensive production. But we continue to do it because there is not another play like this, written by an Indian playwright on an Indian milieu.
You can’t classify the play into any particular genre. In fact, a can of worms is being opened in front of the audience, but it has been masked cleverly. We wanted to try new things with theatre in the hope that others would follow suit.
Isn’t it a lonely experience? In the case of Odakalu Bimba, it’s an experience lived twice over; one as an actor and two, the character in the play.
I agree it is a lonely experience. In a regular theatre production, everyone has a stake in each other’s role. But here I’m all alone. I even do my own make up, lock up my room, and go down for my show. It is a very challenging role; there’s no actor listening to you, but only talking to you. She is the most ruthless co-actor I’ve ever worked with.
There are little defects in the production, but it has given me a complete experience. However, after 35 years in theatre, I have the tools to deal with it.
The play, talks of the real and virtual world. The more I think of the real and virtual divide, the more closer they seem to come, almost to the point of one becoming the other. Can you respond?
That’s true. They both morph into one another. In fact, Girish has said in one of our brochures: “We all live in this world of technological images that are constantly thrown at you. What if one day the image that you see is yours?”
It happens to us everyday as we look into the mirror… we spot a gray hair, a pimple or a ponch that we’ve never noticed before.
This perhaps is the next level. It’s a complex position to be in, but I bring in the personal life parallel to deal with it. Also, it’s not unknown, all of us would have dealt with it.
DEEPA GANESH
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