Dinesh Khanna’s play on Jim Morrison focusses on him as a poet, lover in search of trust and rebel in need of freedom. Utpal K Banerjee reports
Jim Morrison (1943-1961) has been one of the most iconic, charismatic and pioneering vanguard in rock music history. He was a quintessential American singer-songwriter, poet and best remembered for the los Angeles Rock band, The Doors, which he founded in 1965.
Morrison was, and continues to be, one of the most influential lyricists in the rock annals. To this day, Morrison is widely regarded as the proto-typical rockstar: surly, sexy, scandalous and mysterious. The leather pants he was fond of wearing — both onstage and off — have since become stereotyped as rockstar apparel!
Jim Morrison-The Unknown Soldier, NSD’s recent final year presentation, begins with the assertion, “He is dead for decades, but he is still causing trouble Morrison, a composer-musician — very dissatisfied with himself and restlessly writhing — was the rockstar of the 1960s and 1970s, who solely and indisputably ruled the rock sphere.”
The production is both scripted and directed by the ace thespian Dinesh Khanna, who says, “My play looks beyond the rockstar image of Morrison. As a reigning star, he kissed the heights of success, earned a name, and lived grandeur and elegance to their fullest. But he was ultimately a poet: a seeker looking for expression, a lover in search of trust and a rebel in need of freedom. He was a born nomad who wandered literally from door to door throughout his life in search of the inner artist.”
The play seems to have released the primal energy normally dormant. Accompanied by the four-piece band, Traffic Jam (who operates from their home grounds of Delhi), the production lets loose a medley of high-decibel songs and vigorous pseudo-ballet dances by the irrepressible characters: with no-holds barred.
Beginning with Morrison (there are two of them, in fact, alternating with each other) dramatically rising from his grave to join his childhood flame Pamela Courson and proceeding to have orgiastic liaison with an assortment of other females — like Mary, Nico, Patricia and Valerie — who pass through his life.
Morrison reportedly regularly had sex with fans (“groupies”) and had numerous short flings with the other gender connected with music business or the print media. This aspect appears to be highlighted and visualised with gusto by the very young dramatis personae.
The other innovation is the flesh-and-blood presence of the contemporary personalities like Allen Ginsberg (1926-1976), the famous American poet, and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation and the
counter-culture; Andy Warhol (1928-1987), the leading pioneer of computer-generated art and the pop art movement of the time; and Ray Manzarek (1939-2013), his life-long companion from UClA days and co-founder of the Doors. They come and go seamlessly with all their quirks and foibles, complete with Warhol painting several portraits of a socialite.
Explains the director, “In a very short life, Morrison wrote many songs, singing and humming a number of melodies. The more calm he used to look in private, the more destructive, angry and fiery he was on the rostrum.”
“He remains omnipresent in every character of the play, bringing them together to speak about their relationships with him. In a non-linear narrative, my play portrays life’s events of Morrison, and highlights his ideological struggle by introducing characters of Ginsberg, Warhol and his colleague Ray Manzarek,” he added.
Answering the query whether he attempted a biopic, Khanna replies emphatically, “You can’t see it just as a biopic of a person. Rather, it questions the establishment in 1960s and 70s of the hippy America, whose resonance persists in the nation they are living even today. Morrison undoubtedly is causing trouble still, after his death decades ago!”