Director and writer Vikram Kapadia talks to Divya Kaushik about his famous play that exposes modern life and its problems in a witty way
He chanced upon the story of his most successful two-act play, Black With Equal, while he was attending the annual general meeting of a housing society in Mumbai. Some comments made by one of the members resulted in the origination of the idea. In fact, Vikram Kapadia says that most of his ideas are born out of randomness. His play Bombay Talkies, which will be staged in the city over the weekend, also has an interesting story about it. “It is an urban universal story and the resonances go beyond Mumbai. There was an event held couple of years ago to commemorate 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. I was invited to write and direct a monologue to be performed by Mandira Bedi. It was called Embracing The Future. The event had some luminaries as well as the family members of those who lost their lives during the unfortunate event. So I wrote a piece called Tamasha in Hindi and it was received very well by the audience. I then felt like writing seven more monologues and this was how Bombay Talkies was born with. The play deals with some very awkward and sensitive moments of eight characters, all from Mumbai. Each character talks to the audience about their private moments, how they changed their lives and how they coped with their problems,” shared Kapadia, a known contemporary playwright.
He says that the title is his tribute to Bombay Talkies production. “There are no political references that I want to make through the title of this play. It is just that the story revolves around the people of Mumbai who represent the urban society. The play is composed in a way that it talks about the lives of people living in any metropolitan of India. The reason I feel it has been liked by the audience wherever it has been staged is that it is honest, characters are easily identifiable, it is insightful and extremely hilarious. I think there is a dearth of this kind of writing. There should be much about what is happening now. You cannot go on reproducing the classics and doing touch ups,” said Kapadia.
The theatre director and writer did a series of monologues with Rahul Da Cunha and Anahita Oberoi in 1998. It was called Going Solo and the concept was loved by the audience. In 2000, they came up with Going Solo 2. “It is easier to convey a message through monologues. Moreover, we should keep in mind that not many want to sit for hours at a stretch concentrating on one story,” he commented. Kapadia feels there has not been a major change in theatre over the last years. “I only see change happening in the number of plays being made. Also we see a lot of workshops and training happening in theatre, I don’t see exchange of creative environment. Not much has changed on the infrastructure or in the performance spaces. I know most of the theatres and the same three lights which didn’t work earlier are not proper even today. In short, people are still facing the same problems which we faced. But I am hopeful that some day things will start changing,” he said.
Vikram was a part of the small screen and has appeared in K Street Pali Hill. As a writer he wrote screenplays and dialogues of several shows, including the popular sit-com Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. But now Kapadia has no plans to return to TV. “I have been a part of it and there is no good thing that I to say about TV. There is no denial to the fact that couple of years ago the medium gave me a lot of money but those years I spent acting in TV doesn’t exist for me anymore, there was nothing creative about them. You get up, do the same thing everyday, come home and sleep. I did everything that I taught people not to do,” he commented. At present, his entire focus is on his film, “which is a long-term project and I am in the process of writing its screenplay.”