Director Saif Hyder Hasan talked to Ganita about the play Gardish Mein Taare and the importance of visuals and music in theater
William Blake once aptly remarked, ‘Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.’ And this applies true to certain stories that appear to be full of love and joy but somewhere deep inside rooted is an unrevealed pain — a pain that never ends but rather ends the life. This holds true for discontented marital life of Guru Dutt and Geeta Dutt. Their story is known to each of us from various sources and recently it became a subject of interest for the director Saif Hyder Hasan. And he transformed it in the form of a play called Gardish Mein Taare that was staged recently in the capital.
The play fictionalised the relationship between the celebrated filmmaker and actor Guru Dutt and singer Geeta Dutt, played by noted actors Arif Zakaria and Sonali Kulkarni. Dev Dutt and Bhavana are the fictional characters trapped in marital turmoil and changing equations. “The script was co-written by me and Sumana. We have worked together for Ek Mulaqat. It was Sumana’s idea to do a story on Guru Dutt. We have borrowed some real events from Guru Dutt’s life. His encounter with Dilip Kumar and the incident about his and Raj Kapoor’s chance viewing of Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali provide trivia with humor,” said the director Saif Hyder Hasan. Keeping a little of melancholy, cinema, and a match all of this. Inherently it is a story of a man and a woman, a husband and wife, their love and the end of the love.
The stage of Sathya Sai Auditorium was lit up with different coloured lights but blue dominated the others, casting a cinematic glow. A giant screen was used for the opening credits in 50s style which worked well with the genre of the play. The screen, showing stills from old cinema and the melodious music, took us back in the time. The background score was adding to the effect. Visually striking sets, rich music and poetic narration revolving around a troubled couple, Gardish Mein Taare was a mixture of all of this.
In the play Bhavana describes her and Dev Dutt’s story to a cop who came to investigate about Dev’s suicide case. The use of flashback and humour at regular intervals enhance the script. However, Bhavna’s intimate flirting with the cop doesn’t seem justified. Keeping up with the nature of the play and its protagonists, the narration is full of elements that help in generating an artistic mood. The growing problems between the couple are depicted in a creative manner, instead of the usual arguments and clichéd dramatic moments. Asked about the visuals the director said, “I like to narrate stories visually. Without visuals there is a lot of rhetoric, lot of speech, lot of written. We are in an age where there is internet and a lot of other options available to people for entertainment. As theatre people we keep complaining that there is no audience, so we should try something new everytime. The visual element of the screen also came from the fact that it is a play about cinema. We are taking you into an age without mentioning it into the dialogues.” He gave the credits for lights and set to the set designer Chetan Chand. “He works in all my plays. This creative human came up with this very interesting idea of hanging light bulbs as chandeliers. There were lot of miniatures there in Mumbai; we didn’t get them in Delhi. So he cut bisleri water bottles and made lamps out of them. He is very creative,” said Hasan.
Parivesh Singh is the music director of the play. The background songs were sung by Neha Rajpal and Shail Hada. One song was also by Kumar Sanu. Talking about his team he said, “They inject blood in my storytelling.” The play gains from mature performances by Arif Zakaria and Sonali Kulkarni. Arif does full justice to his character, especially to his chauvinistic nature. Kulkarni on the other hand succeeds in being romantic, sad and frustrated at the same time. “I love both the actors from the bottom of my heart. We are working together for almost one and half years now for this play,” said the director praising them. The actors also seem to be liking and trusting the director a lot as Sonali said, “I trust my director for the script. I never want to go beyond the requirement. He has done a research on the life of Guru Dutt, so I followed him.” Talking about the play Arif said, “I hadn’t been with theatre for a very long time. I thought to make a come back with this. I have been reading about Guru Dutt recently and everyone knows about him. You read about the person and give your own interpretation to the story. That’s how I do it everytime.”