Where are Dalit actors in theater?
A friend of mine had once told me that she had seen a post on facebook where someone had posted about an acting workshop only for Dalits. And one can imagine the uproar that it might have created on the social media, and nobody knows what happened to that workshop.
I was making a play that had caste politics as one of the major themes, and I wanted Dalit actors. No, not because the Dalits would play the Dalit characters, but more so as dramaturgs who can guide us in the right direction. But unfortunately it did not happen. Within my limitations I tried my best to get them on board but in vain, simply because they are not part of the ‘network’. One doesn’t know where to find them. This is not just because I was not a Dalit and did not know actors from the Dalit community. One of our advisers, a Dalit intellectual, himself faced a lot of problems in the same regard while he was making a film on Pourakarmikas.
This I think is a great insight on our social sysytem. Theater, or art in general, is a luxury many of our friends cannot afford. With due respect to all the struggles that we go through as artists, we also should realize that we are privileged. Our social and financial structures do not prevent us from doing what we want.
The Huge Cast and Crew
The play originally needed twelve actors. And as I started casting I realized that it was very difficult. We had out first reading on the 25th of November 2017, but the rehearsals could only begin by the 10th of December. Even then we did not have the full cast. We were rehearsing only those scenes for which we had actors. Slowly, with help from friends, we were able to get together a complete and diverse group.
Though it seems a to be a deadly task, there are huge advantages when one is working on plays with big casts. The diverse ideas that people bring is just invaluable, and in itself gives a lot of dimensions to the play. In fact the best ideas in the play almost always came from others and not me. Of course it makes me feel slightly insecure as a person. What if I don’t get an equally good team next time? But it also reinforces the fact that the director is only as good as his team. Also to have a room full of passionate people to work with is an experience that is worth all the other kinds of pressures that one has to go through as a director. Any kind of crisis, there will be someone who has a solution.
The Importance of a Dramaturg
The play had an epilogue. But I had cut that scene assuming that whatever was said in that scene was already achieved in the previous scenes. One day before the show, our dramaturg Ujwala Rao suggested that was not the case. In fact she designed the whole epilogue scene one day before the opening after watching which I realized she was absolutely right. Without that scene, the meaning of the play would have been entirely different. The reason I say this is that we as directors, after a point of time in the rehearsal process, get too close to the play. We are worried about the ‘landing’ of the play and might sometimes miss out on the finer, nuanced meaning that the play is trying to convey. An intelligent outside eye is extremely necessary in this regard.
Other than this there were other obvious challenges with respect to money and space and resources. But I think that is going to be there throughout our lives. The one thing I am happy about is that we as a team didn’t allow those challenges to dictate the play. And it is quite a satisfying feeling to know that we did that.
Indian Ensemble's 