Makarand Deshpande: Wedded to theatre, forever

Nonika Singh

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AN unmarried man writing and directing a play on marriage sounds incongruous, almost like an oxymoron. But noted writer-director-actor Makarand Deshpande, who staged his play ‘Dhat Teri Yeh Grihasthi’ at the ongoing Prithvi Theatre Festival, Mumbai, believes: “If you are outside the institution of marriage, you think better and there is greater objectivity and clarity as you do not colour the narrative with your good or bad experiences.” In short, though he may have been in a steady relationship, his take on marriage is not ‘personal, personal’.

But, of course, love for theatre is very personal and happened to him just as life happens to all of us. Devoted to this live performing art for nearly three decades, during which he has staged over 50 plays, the challenges have been manifold. If 30 years back “time was on our side”, he feels today “everyone is busy and actors have to sacrifice a lot to make room for theatre commitments”. However, unlike most practitioners, he doesn’t think theatre is an actor’s medium; rather, it is essentially a playwright’s playground. “Most people don’t understand this fact as old plays are staged again and again.”

Makarand’s reason for writing plays is not dearth of playwrights, but a simple organic yearning: “I love to write.” The writer-director combination works like magic, the writer in him being guided by the director. However, once in a while, he has been tempted to direct others’ writings — he created a play out of Vijay Tendulkar’s character Sakharam Binder and has directed two plays by Nivedita Pohankar as well as one by Rabindranath Tagore. After staging ‘Chitra’, an adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s dance drama ‘Chitrangada’, in 1996, the writer in him changed somewhere. “I became more poetic and started using mythological themes as well.” During the Covid pandemic, Makarand wrote on Buddha, Krishna and Gandhi too.

Of course, social concerns are invariably integrated in his plays. If his latest play, ‘Dhat Teri Yeh Grihasthi’, drives home the significance of grihastha ashram, the last one, ‘Balatkar Please Stop It!’, brought forth the trauma of sexual assault victims. But he is no activist and believes that “a play should either stun its viewers like a spectacle or connect emotionally”. Though ‘Dhat Teri Yeh Grihasthi’ is a hilarious take on marriage, it strikes an emotional chord. Certainly, theatre can’t survive without the entertainment quotient, yet, insists Makarand, “Laughter alone is not entertainment.”

Those who unnecessarily intellectualise plays do not meet his approval either. There was a time when his plays such as ‘Ek Kadam Aage’, ‘Dream Man’ and ‘Kutte Ki Maut’ were abstract and not fully understood by the audiences, who were bemused alright but equally clueless about what he wanted to say. He, however, grew out of this ‘self-indulgence’.

While he swears by the potency of theatre which no other medium can beat “as it is happening in real time”, he doesn’t dumb down cinema. Having acted in movies such as ‘Sarfarosh’, ‘Swades’, ‘Makdee’, et al, he asserts, “Cinema can be a beautiful art too.” Associated with cinema in many languages, he enjoys the attention from a Malayali or Telugu moviegoer. Born and brought up in a cosmopolitan Mumbai, felicity over various languages came naturally to this Maharashtrian. On transitioning from one medium to another, especially from inane movies like ‘Liger’ to profound plays, all he says is, “An actor has to be available for all mediums. Cinema is my profession that supports theatre, my first love.”

It is not as if he places theatre on a higher pedestal vis-à-vis other arts. He is OK with the new face of theatre — teleplays. His longest running play ‘Sir Sir Sarla’ is available in this new format on ZEE 5. He has no quarrels with OTT either, which is drawing audiences in droves. Rather, he feels, “It has opened new doors and even changed the complexion of theatre which is now picking up bolder themes.” He considers his play ‘Kasturi’, which explored woman’s sexuality, as the boldest in his stable. ‘Kasturi’ starred Ratna Pathak Shah with Sanjana Kapoor and Kay Kay Menon (one of the founders of his theatre group Ansh) were the lead in ‘Chitra’.

However, Makarand does not use his position in the filmdom to rope in stars. Theatre became his muse because he didn’t want to pander to any producer or box office. Not to say that the economics of theatre does not worry him. While Prithvi Theatre, where he is at home with nine of his shows currently live, has its loyal audiences, the limited number of theatres in the country concern him. “There should be a theatre in every mall,” he advocates. Would the audiences be ready to pay for a ticketed play, especially in smaller cities? “Yes, if we can inculcate the habit and break the tradition of free passes,” he answers. “Nothing is more magical than a live performance. It is so real, you can almost touch and feel. Every effort must be made to keep it alive,” he says.

Makarand, anyway, is truly present — ‘wholesome emotionally and intellectually” — in theatre to which he adds his unique touch of madness and realism. Imagine conceiving a play that talks about providing a husband or a wife on hire for better understanding of the institution of marriage. But then, isn’t play acting all about the drama of life?