City theatre's rediscovery of Nehru

GURGAON: City based theatre company ‘Arts’ would be presenting the first ever play on the life and character of Jawahar Lal Nehru in India Habitat Centre this weekend.
The theatre group, founded by Uma Shankar and Anjali Singh, residents of Laburnum and other theatre enthusiasts, has been working on various innovative dramatic performances like community plays that are staged inside residential colonies.
“The agenda behind setting up Arts was to bring theatre to the people of Gurgaon. The audience here is well exposed to good theatre from around the world and we rope in legendary theatre artists like Naseeruddin Shah, Rajat Kapoor, Faisal Alkazi, Maya Rao, and Dilip Shanker. So far our work has been well appreciated,” said Uma, who learnt theatre in college and spent time in Gaiety Theatre, Shimla.
“I have loved theatre all my life and when I shifted to Gurgaon, there was hardly any theatre in the city. I realized that the place had a good audience that wanted to watch fine quality dramatics,” she added.
Pramila Le Hunt, who lives in Ghitorni and learnt theatre in London, has been researching on Nehru for a long time. “It’s quite surprising that nobody has done a play on Nehru before. As a director I found a great subject in him. I have used his letters and writings and quoted him throughout the play,” said Pramila.
She believes in total theatre and has incorporated the elements of monologue, music, dance song, poetry, mime, cartoon and tableaux. All these bring to bear upon the audience a timbre and a canvas unique to the medium of theatre. “Nehru — his inner story, the play, is being first debuted in Delhi, but the creative energy comes from Gurgaon,” she added.
The group started with solo performances and plays for residents of condominium societies.
The first comic performance by Maya Rao, in the community centre of laburnum, witnessed over 70 viewers per show. “We then decided to get Naseeruddin Shah for a show in Epicentre, and it turned out to be an absolute houseful, even though the tickets were quite expensive,” said Anjali Singh.