Theatre Group Bombay

After Macbeth, Bobby went on to direct a number of plays like Gods & Kings, Bernadette of Lourdes (1943), Dr. Faustus (1943), and a production of Oscar Wilde’s Salome (1943) that became infamous during its time due its unabashed broaching of feminism to a largely conservative city audience.

Bobby's group followed with a host of productions, including a production of Othello (1945) that started at the end and then flashed back to the beginning.

With little infrastructure and even less finance these initial productions were rudimentary. Bobby's family home was blessed with a large terrace. This was converted into a theatre space. Every mothers cupboard was raided for old saris to fashion into costumes. In homes furniture went missing only to appear in some unrecognizable shape on the stage. Imagination, passion and energy made up for all the missing pieces to mount memorable theatre experiences.

Sadly Bobby passed away in 1946 at the young age of 26, abruptly ending a promising career. But his zeal and passion was kept alive by his peers.

In 1947 'Theatre Group of Bombay' adopted its constitution and was registered under the Public Trust Act and the Society’s Registration Act. All the profits were called back into the group itself and put into the next production. Today it is a public trust and functions as a non-profit organisation.

Adi Marzban, who was at that time a famous writer and director of Parsi/Gujarati plays, stepped in to fill the space left by Bobby. He did plays such as JB Priestley’s Music at Night and Inspector Calls, Brandon Thomas’s Charlies Aunt. During this period Jeffries, Sayani and Alkazi managed Theatre Group. Eventually when Marzban went back to Parsi/Gujarati theatre, Alkazi took over from him and directed Shakespeare’s Richard III and Hamlet before going off to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.

Alkazi returned from school in London with a suitcase filled with plays. In his time abroad he had been exposed to European theatre. He brought back the works of Strindberg and Chekov. A style of writing that Indian theatre was unacquainted with at that time.

In 1954, about 8 years after Bobby’s death Alkazi left Theatre Group to start Theatre Unit. This marked a new beginning for Theatre Group with the younger blood coming in and creating new work.

In 1956, Adi Marzban with Derek Jeffries produced George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s The Man Who Came to Dinner. Theatre Group’s first big hit. The average size for its audience ranged from over 300 per night to 800-1000, and it ran longer than any of the previous productions.

Alyque recalls that in those days he had to wake especially early, as he had to go to the godown, load the set pieces that no mother would allow to be stored in her home and walk alongside the handcart to the theatre. Necessary when you lived in fear that the 'transporter' would not simply walk off with the days staging material to be sold in some exotic bazaar.

While managing his duties as transport captain Alyque Padamsee produced two productions. The Madwoman of ChaillotCandida starring Gerson da Cunha, Zul Vellani and Usha Katrak. Candida was the first Theatre Group production to go on tour. They went to Ahmedabad, and performed at the only theatre in Ahmedabad at that point of time.

In 1957, due to the limited reach of English theatre in Bombay, Theatre Group switched to creating work in Hindi. They did three large scale productions,- the first was an adaptation of Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie called Shishon Ke Khilone starring Shabana Azmi’s mother Shaukat Azmi. Rifat Shamim had translated the script.

Shamim then went on to translate the text for an adaptation of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons called Saara Sansaar Apna Parivar, which once again had Shaukat Azmi in it. The third production was an original piece by Shamim called Shaayad Aap Bhi Hasen . It was set in the Indian film industry, and for each show of the play, both Shamim and Padamsee would invite a filmstar to come and watch. The audiences went mad for it.

A huge opportunity presented itself. Derek Jeffries, the groups technical go to guy, always experimenting with lighting effects and unusual sound reproductions was asked to come in and design the stage and lights for the newly constructed auditorium within the Sophia College Campus. The Sophia Bhabbha Auditorium became a home for English Theatre in Bombay. Jeffries was also on the committee for the Rabindranath Tagore Theatres across the nation.

English theatre was beginning to evolve across the nation. It was now being performed regularly not only by the British and Americans, but also by Indian theatre troupes. However, most of the plays being done were old classics. It was around this time that Alyque Padamsee remembered the lessons of the American Group Theatre'. Audiences wanted to hear their own voices on the stage. It was important that Indians write about themselves and tell their own stories.

In order to test this theory, he did a small experimental play set in Bandra called Bandra Saturday Night. The play was a hit amongst the youth and hated by the elders for it’s use of the Bandra lingo. But it affirmed Alyque’s viewpoint of this need for Indian writing. In 1966, the Theatre Group organised it’s first playwriting completion, called the Sultan Padamsee Playwriting award. The first play to win the prize was Gurcharan Das’s Larins Sahib. The second prize was won by Gieve’s Patel’s Princes.

With time the English Theatre scene in Mumbai moved from the British towards the American and Theatre Group moved from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to Albee’s The Zoo Story. They performed it at what was then called the Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Insitute.

Then came Pratap Sharma’s Duct of Brightness, which was about the Red Light District area in Mumbai. It was selected for the 1st Commonwealth Arts Festival (1965) in London, but because of it’s subject matter the Home Minister felt that the play painted the nation in a bad light and so he withdrew the passports of the entire cast and banned the play.

Pratap Sharma along with Soli Sohrabji spent the next 7 years fighting the ban till finally the Censor Board had its ban overturned. At the time the ban was lifted, absurdist American plays had taken centrestage within the nation. So instead there was a production of Arthur Kopit’s O Dad Poor Dad Mamma’s hung you in the closet and I am feeling so sad.

Theatre, like life finds a way to move on.

Then came Trial Room and what may have been the beginning of Café Theatre in Mumbai. Trial Room was a series of plays put together to form an evening. One piece included a 'shadow play' experiment of a drama called The Alligator by Ferlenghetti and a spoof of Julius Ceaser set to the music of The Beatles. Then came the landmark Tughlaq. Written by Girish Karnad, Alyque created both excitement and despair when he cast a model with little acting experience in the tittle role. Kabir Bedi worked very hard to make an impression. His amazing career on stage and in film continues to be a triumph.

With Gurcharan Das’s Mira, Theatre Group was now beginning to move towards experimental theatre. They had done a series of improvisations as an experiment to help create new writing, which led to a play called Asylum by Erna Vatchaghandy.

Then another unusual production was Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, which was done in a drawing room in Colaba and small audiences of 25 people seated around the walls of the drawing room.

The third production in this series was The Persecution and Assasination of Jean- Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of The Marquis de Sae by Peter Weiss.

The St Xaviers College auditorium has a balcony that runs around the open stalls. Alyque prized the staging off the stage and into the space where the audiences sat. The audiences on the upper balconies looked in on 'Asylum' below.

Pratap Sharma’s The Word with Pearl Padamsee was a quiet intense piece.

Jesus Christ Superstar at the Bombay Hospital’s underground Birla Auditorium. This was the first time that TG had people waiting in queues at the box office and Jesus Christ Superstar ran successful shows for an entire year, becoming Theatre Group’s most popular production till Evita four years later. Evita had Sharon Prabhakar in the lead role and was directed by Alyque Padamsee; it toured across the entire country.

In 1976 Alyque did another production of Tennesse Williams A Streetcar Named Desire, this time in it’s original form with Sabira Merchant and Dalip Tahil. Then in 1981 came Ismat Chugtai’s hindi traslation of Marat/Sade called Paagal Khaana. The play is set in an asylum where the inmates of the asylum revolt by beating up the audience. It happened at the Prithvi Theatre and about fifty percent of the play was improvised by the actors.

In 1986 Theatre Group did an unusual production of a silent german play with Smita Patil. It was adapted to an Indian setting and called Aap Ki Farmaish. The entire piece did not have a single word of dialogue in it and only came with a set of actions as instructions.

After this came Titli, an adaptation of Butterflies are Free with Sharon Prabhakar, and Tarantula Tanzi which inaugrated the NCPA experimental theatre. the Expi, as its affectionately called is the black box theatre within the NCPA, Mumbai. Tarantula Tanzi is located in wrestling ring that was placed in the centre of the 'box' auditorium. The audience sat on all four sides of the ring / stage like in a wrestling arena.

Mahadada with Amjad Khan was planned. The Bollywood actor that played Gabbar in Sholay would be seen in a new light. Sadly Amjad fell ill after only a few performances and was replaced by his brother Imtiaz Khan in the tittle role. This was followed by Kabaret in 1988 starring Sharon Prabhakar.

Kabaret, with a K to emphasise its German setting.

In 1990 came Othello with Kabir Bedi at the NCPA. It was directed by Alyque Padamsee and had a 50 foot long set.

It was around this time that new Indian plywrights were beginning to emerge. One of them was Mahesh Dattan’s Tara, that spoke about emancipation of the girl-child through a girl called Tara who has only one leg. Tara toured successfully all over the country and ran for over 50 shows. This was followed by a set of improvisations with Dattani that led to the play now known as Final Solutions.

Final Solutions was Theatre Group’s last production under it’s own banner. The work that TG did over the years has deeply influenced the Mumbai theatre scene. It was very important for Theatre Group that young voices be given a platform to be heard, after all Theatre Group itself was started by a bunch of young ambitious voices in the city of Mumbai. It’s legacy is now lived on by Raell Padamsee’s Ace Productions, Q Theatre Productions and Thespo, which is a youth theatre festival that takes place in December at the Prithvi Theatre each year.

So the story continues......