For all those who did not enjoy reading William Shakespeare in school, theatre director Atul Kumar has come up with a perfect solution to make it more palatable: Piya Behrupiya, the Hindi translation and musical adaptation of the bard’s comedy Twelfth Night, which will be staged at Ductac in Dubai’s Mall Of The Emirates on Friday and Saturday.
Kumar was commissioned by Shakespeare’s Globe in London, the spiritual home of the playwright’s works, to give it an Indian twist. He was given the option of translating either Othello, All’s Well That Ends Well or Twelfth Night; Kumar chose the third option and set it in 1900s colonial India.
“The de-construction happened while we were rehearsing. At first I had no clue that it would become a musical and I didn’t even know whether such a translation would work or not. It could easily have become a romantic saga, or a political commentary on alternative sexual preferences, since there’s a lot of cross-dressing. But it took its own course. I jumped into rehearsals keeping my mind open,” said Kumar.
The strategy seems to have worked. Piya Behrupiya staged its 100th show at the Festival International Santiago a Mil in Chile.
“But my biggest challenge was the making of its music. Very shortly into the rehearsals, I realised that music is going to be necessary and I have never done a musical in my life. I have a good ear for music but I am not trained in singing or playing any musical instrument. It was difficult for me to understand the technicalities of using music live in a theatre production. That was my greatest challenge and the greatest discovery,” said Kumar, adding that there’s a generous helping of Indian folk music in his play about Lady Olivia (Mansi Multani), Duke Orsino (Sagar Deshmukh), Sebastian (Amitosh Nagpal) and Viola (Geetanjali Kulkarni).
So was Kumar a fan of Shakespeare?
“Shakespeare came into our curriculum and thereby killed itself. I remember growing up and hating Shakespeare. It was forced down our throat but I rediscovered it later in my life. I de-coded his language without anybody sitting on my head. All arts should not be taught. Arts should be discussed,” said Kumar. He added that teachers in India were now coming up with innovative ways in teaching Shakespeare.
Piya Behrupiya, which opened to superlative reviews, seems to be a culmination of these beliefs.
“We didn’t attach too much importance to the language of Shakespeare, we jumped into the soul of the story. His tales speak about basic human instincts and struggles, and those are common in all civilisation throughout history.”
