Theatre is a powerful medium, says Sameera Iyengar

Acting or direction never interested Sameera. All she wanted was association with the medium of theatre, which she considered to be so powerful. In fact, with this desire in her heart, she was introduced to Sanjna Kapoor by a cousin. Soon this meeting translated into a job, which Sameera adorably loves as she gets to meet interact with interesting artists, understand the world of theatre and explore multifold growth opportunities for Junoon. Today as co-founder of Junoon (along with Sanjna Kapoor), Sameera Iyengar talks to My Theatre Café and shares her passion for the creative medium. 

1.     What interested you to theatre?

A: I dabbled a bit in theatre in school and remember that I loved to watch my seniors rehearse in the free time I had between swimming and basketball practice. But I really got into theatre in college, at MIT. Even though it’s a science and engineering college, they have a requirement that all students take 25% of their courses in the Humanities, Arts or Social Sciences. I chose to try out theatre, because I thought it would be great to do a course, where there were no text books!

They had great teachers and I slowly got hooked, and took more and more courses and even acted and directed – and got deeper and deeper into the world of theatre. I experienced it as a great space of collective creativity, but also a medium through which you learned so much about yourself and the wonderful complexity and richness of the world. That has remained my enduring fascination with theatre.

2. How has been the journey so far in this field?

A: It’s kept me on my toes! J I never thought I would be able to work in theatre in India – we didn’t have any real institutional setups, and I wasn’t really interested in being an actor or director. I just wanted to work with the medium – I believed so much in its power.

While I was visiting Delhi, wondering how to work with theatre, I ran into Sanjna – my cousin Smita was in her workshop. When Sanjna heard I’d done my further studies in theatre, she asked me if I’d come to Bombay – and I said, sure, if you give me a job. And there began a journey of learning and growing that was exciting, immensely trying at times, but always stimulating.

I was very lucky to begin work with theatre in India under Sanjna, as she is very open to new ideas and possibilities that contribute to the field of theatre. So once I understood a bit of the work, I got a very free hand to try things out. And that’s allowed me to come to this very exciting period of my life with Junoon.

I have to say that a big reason for being in theatre today is the people, who tend to veer towards theatre. From my early days in college, the person, who embraced theatre seemed to have an attitude towards life that made sense to me, and that inspired me.

During my research across many parts of India – in cities, towns and villages – I met amazing performing artists, people who really lived life on their own terms and made such tremendous contribution through their work. Today I can’t imagine working with any other medium or community of people. The theatre community is an amazing group of people – rich in their diversity and their lovable eccentricities, united in their passion and complete commitment to making theatre, and always up for new efforts and endeavours, as long as it’s a good idea, no matter what the risk. It’s humbling and inspiring to be a part of this world.

 3. What are your views on the current state of theatre in the country?

A: I think we have an amazing amount of talent, creativity and passion amongst people, who do theatre in this country. However, the environment theatre functions in is so sparse, so lacking of support structures, that it affects the work that people do.

Artists are forced to make far too many compromises in the process of creating, for lack of rehearsal space, time (because they cannot earn from theatre, and have to give time to earn by other means), training possibilities, exposure, affordable performance spaces, and other things critical to the life of theatre including, of course, money. My sense is, even the excellent work we see in India could possibly be doubly or triply excellent if we simply had basic infrastructure in place for theatre, so the artists did not have to struggle so hard simply to put on a play. I do believe we have that kind of talent and possibility.

4. Whose work in theatre inspires you?

A: It’s hard to name one person. I guess it would be true to say that most of the people, who most inspire me are directors. Habib Tanvir has of course been a great inspiration – his plays are one of my earliest theatre memories, and they were simply magical. Then of course, Satyadev Dubey – I did not get to see much of his work, but I did see his Antigone, which was simply brilliant. But more importantly, Dubey was just theatre personified. He lived, breathed and demanded for theatre in ways that have inspired and injected theatre into so many people.

Chetan Datar was someone, who was really coming into his own with some brilliant work, when he was struck down with a tragic illness. I miss him, and often think about the cruelty of his life being cut short as he was reaching the pinnacle of his career. I find Sunil Shanbag’s (Arpana) work fascinating – I love the journey’s he is taking in the theatre that he is creating, the form he is playing with and the worlds and social histories he is opening up for us to see. Sex, Morality and Censorship and Stories in a Song and now I am looking forward to the new musical he is creating.

Shaili Sathyu (Gillo) is one of the young directors, whose work I am thoroughly enjoying – I love watching her work for young audiences. These are just some names from people, who’ve been in my immediate circle of theatre life – there are many more.

Internationally, Complicite’s work has been an eye-opener, combining effortlessly great thought with wonderful choreography and performance, and a lovely ease with technology – though I’ve also seen work of theirs with absolutely no technology, and it’s equally good. And a few years ago, I saw the work of another UK based company, 1927, combining animation with performance – and was quite blown away.

 5. Any advice for people, who wish to make a career in theatre and performing arts management?

A: My advice – do it. This is a good time. We are all recognizing that with some good management, the field of theatre and performing arts can really benefit. But do it with full knowledge that you are in the service of the creativity of the theatre and performance artists. You exist because they do. They will always exist, whether or not you do. You are the fan, who wants to support their work, and give them a better playing field. You figure out how to work with them, instead of blindly imposing structures that don’t work for them. You could be a catalyst to help them thrive. That’s your role.

My other piece of advice – don’t blindly impose management practices that exist in the business sector or in the West. The bottom line for the business sector is profit; the arts have multiple bottom lines. The West has infrastructure they can rely on, and management to suit that infrastructure. We don’t have such infrastructure. So we’ve got to be immensely creative and build management practices that will work in our scenarios, taking of course best practices from business and the West that make sense for us.

 6. What are you currently doing?

A: Dreaming up and putting into place the hundred million ideas we have with Junoon!

We have just launched our annual school programme, and our annual corporate programme, and are currently working on our public spaces programme – it’s all very very exciting. We are dreaming of having regular spaces for arts engagements across the city of Mumbai – and it is beginning to look like this dream is on its way to becoming a reality. More on that as it comes together J

7. What are your future plans for Junoon?

A: We’d like to be working across the country, bringing the experience and richness of theatre through shows, interactions and workshops to school students and the immediate decision-makers in their lives – teachers and parents.

We’d like to be unleashing arts experiences across the city of Mumbai, and have a model set up and documented that people across the country could implement if they wished to.

We’d like to be working in collaboration with like-minded people across India to infuse the richness of the arts into people’s live in multiple ways.

We’d like to be developing people who can work for the arts, professionally, with rigour, and with a deep understanding and respect for the arts.

We’d like to be touring world-quality theatre regularly across the length and breadth of this country.

We’d like to be touring theatre for children across the length and breadth of this country.

We’d like to be waking up every morning as energised to take our efforts forward as we do today, as excited about possibility and finding new partners, and sharing and realizing dreams. We’d like to have grown into a larger team that shares this dream and passion, and that is equipped to make it happen.

And we’d like to have huge community support and ownership in our endeavours – so that we infuse the arts into our lives together, and sustain the world we collectively create. 

For more details about Junoon, visit the website: www.junoontheatre.org or email them: info@junoontheatre.org

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