Cast away

Kumud Mishra and Sandeep Shikhar. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Sandeep Shikhar isn't acting in his new play, Open Cast, and yet, he's playing a double role. As the playwright and the director, he's premiering the production in Mumbai today. The play looks at migration and displacement, a decision made sometimes by choice and sometimes by circumstances. Likewise, direction isn't his vocation by choice, but one shaped by circumstances. "I had given up direction," he says. "When I was in Lincoln Center's Directors Lab in 2012, I realised that direction is a completely different ball game. Either you act or you direct. But in our country, the structure of theatre is such that if a man has written a play, who will direct it? So the poor thing does it himself. There's no money in theatre. So where will he get actors? The poor thing starts acting himself. In other countries, they find it odd that, 'You're a writer, actor and director. How?' In India, to find an actor, all you need is a living person." For Open Cast, Shikhar has found an ensemble of 25 living persons.

Open Cast has two parallel stories, with four important characters, around whom life plays out. Shikhar, who is originally from Dhanbad, has set the first story in his hometown, a setting that electrifies it. "One section of the coal mine, about 100 km, is consumed by a self-sustaining fire for many years," he says. "People who live on top have to be evacuated because when the coal burns into ash, the ground will collapse. The government has decided to give them houses 15 km away. That's not suitable for the labourers, because from 2-4 pm, they steal coal in their tokris and sell it in the cities. If they move, this source of income will go away. So, many people continue to live in the same house. If you go there [in real life], you'll see they're eating food on the floor and smoke is rising from the ground." In such an area in nearby Jharia, a 45-year-old unmarried woman, who steals coal for a living, is dating a truck driver. Eventually, one decides to move to smog-filled Delhi, and one decides to live above fire.

In the other thread, a girl from Dhanbad has moved to Delhi, and doesn't want to return because of the freedoms the big city offers. On her last night in Delhi, she encounters a man whose job is to do live Bhojpuri subtitling of Hollywood films. What's that, you ask. "Suppose Jurassic Park is on the screen, he mutes it, and subtitles it live in Bhojpuri," says Shikhar. "So wherever there are Bhojpuri speakers in India, he puts up bamboo sticks and a curtain." But, his business is on the decline as "people are watching everything on their cell phones. So, he's planning to walk away from this profession, and today is his last show in Delhi." Both have to decide the cartography of their lives: either retrace a path that leads back to zero, or embark on a path that leads nowhere.

The cast during a rehearsal

With about 25 characters, the story unfolds like a sprawling tale, similar to the other body of work set in the coal mines of Dhanbad. Kumud Mishra, who is producing the play (read: "putting in the money") under his theatre company, D for Drama, says, "Because we live in a megapolis, we think we know a lot about the world. In reality, we are clueless. This has a big cast, and I wanted our actors to get the opportunity to work with a director from outside. To understand how to approach the text, and how a director deals with actors. My main aim was for them to get experience." Mishra wanted them to know the pleasure of working with a consummate artiste such as Shikhar, which he has known himself.

In 2014, the two had duelled onstage in Abhishek Majumdar's Kaumudi, as self-centred father and disappointed son. In 2017, when Shikhar and Majumdar had come to Mumbai with the period drama Muktidham, again Mishra had a bit role in it. "Whenever they plan a play in Bengaluru, I run to be a part of it," he says. "I leave all my work here and go. That speaks for itself." For this play, Mishra extended the invitation because, "I used to go to Bengaluru and work for a month-and-a-half. Then I thought, I should also call him here and make him suffer."

When we visit the rehearsal space in Andheri, it doesn't look like suffering; it looks like the living room of a noisy joint family. One set of actors is assembling props: yellow helmets and red gamchas; another set is rehearsing lines; a third is eve-teasing Shikhar and Mishra when they pose with fake smiles for our photo shoot. Eventually, the discussion turns towards a second-hand cycle that needs to be bought for a scene. "The actors can use it in their struggle afterwards: cycle from Andheri to Bandra," Mishra deadpans. Another actor improvises, "We can paint it with D for Drama. Advertising bhi ho jayegi."

Where: NCPA, NCPA Marg, Nariman Point When: February 17; 7 pm
Cost: Rs 450 & Rs 500
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