Theatre: Kapoors; The Dreamer and the Doer

India Today
Nov 16, 1998

THEATRE: KAPOORS
The Dreamer and the Doer

They are the perfect team: Shashi the benevolent godfather and Sanjana the energetic administrator. Between them the two have breathed new life into Prithvi Theatre.

By Nandita Chowdhury

Shashi with Sanjana Sanjana Kapoor is fuming. Papa Shashi "sneaked off" to Mahabaleshwar for an extended Diwali vacation with his grandchildren. So she had to hijack him back to Mumbai to make him sign the invitations for the 20th anniversary of the Prithvi Theatre and its annual festival. "How can he do this to me ?" she asks, tucking her dark blonde hair behind her ears. Well, slippery like the Scarlet Pimpernel -- despite those cumbersome kilos -- Shashi Kapoor couldn't get away with just playing the role of benevolent godfather, presiding distantly over it all with a benign smile. Sanjana won't let him. After all, Prithvi Theatre is like a sibling to her, her grandfather Prithviraj Kapoor's dream and mother Jennifer's "baby".

The "baby", which barely gurgled for many years, has finally, it seems, come of age. There's a buzz about Prithvi Theatre's 14th annual international festival: heated discussions about European theatre, the theme of the festival this time, take place over mugs of Irish Coffee at its Cafe. The father-daughter duo, Shashi and Sanjana, are in a celebratory mood. With reason. After a heady utopian beginning and an uphill struggle -- both financial and creative -- there's finally much ado about something here.

Prithvi Theatre is at last being acknowledged as an international venue for performances. The Theatre of Europe, to be held between November 7 and 25 in Delhi and Mumbai, is an international festival with theatre groups from six European countries -- the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Hungary -- performing. While many of the plays will be staged in European languages, like Ubu and Mary Stuart by the noted French group Nada, others are multilingual like Commedia dell' Arte Galore from Italy which will be performed in Italian, English, gibberish and mime. Beside proscenium plays, there are platform performances and open air performances like the Polish play Carmen Funebre in English. To complete the package, they also have film screenings on European theatre with discussions and debates. Says Makarand Deshpande, a young director who calls himself the product of Prithvi: "It is a new and holistic theatre experience. Something we have not seen before."

This is nothing short of a resurrection for Prithvi. Sanjana has breathed new fire into the theatre. Nine years after she took over, Prithvi has grown to include children's workshops, an art gallery and, of course, the legendary Prithvi Cafe -- the haunt of the intelligentsia and film and theatre personalities in Mumbai -- which has been revived by Sanjana. Recalls Prahlad Kakkar, the ad man who designed the Prithvi Cafe on the lines of the famed Joe Allen chain of theatre restaurants in Broadway and London: "Young Sanjana used to cheerfully wait at tables here in her youth. She is the only one among the Kapoors who has been able to sustain the original flavour and run the place like a professional set-up."

For Sanjana, it's her link with the past and she has become the sole inheritor of the great theatre legacies of both the Kapoors and her mother's family, the Kendalls. With her charm and her managerial skills, it's Sanjana's sense of style that has allowed Prithvi to blossom. As Ismail Merchant, producer-director and close friend, testifies, "She's a great charmer. Even if she wants to ask for money, you could not refuse her because the asking is accompanied by great style, a sense of seduction."

Yet, there is more to Sanjana than style. In spirit and appearance the replica of her mother, this Kapoor has dabbled in many arts. From brief tours with the Shakespeareana, the repertory theatre company of the Kendalls, she turned to films and more recently to anchoring programmes on television. Her stint in Bollywood was confined to forgettable performances in a couple of flop films. It was in theatre that Sanjana found her real identity and vocation. "In the early days of the festival, I was the lowest rung volunteer, lighting diyas and putting up posters," she recalls. The childlike excitement at seeing posters and hoardings on street corners and restaurants is intact even after 14 years. She has transformed Prithvi, imbuing the theatre with her energy and enthusiasm. As Nadira Babbar, a director, says, "There is a certain openness to Sanjana's style of management. Not only is she flexible and open to new ideas, her presence is felt everywhere." For Sanjana, there's no such thing as management by remote. Says Deshpande: "Things have been happening with Prithvi largely because of her personal involvement. She is present day and night."

Funds are a problem, though. Moreover, Prithvi is yet to break even. When the Kapoors approached the Maharashtra Human Resources Development Ministry for funds, the response was along expected lines: "Shashi Kapoor has a lot of money so why should we fund Prithvi?" But Shashi insists, "Prithvi is not an economically viable venture. Like most theatres, including those in the West, it has to be perpetually subsidised." Much to her credit, Sanjana has marshalled resources from the corporate sector.

Like the Prithvi Theatre, Shashi too seems to be emerging from the shadows now. Gradually coming out of a torpor after years. He's more chirpy, more optimistic -- playing the Autumn of the Patriarch bit, while putting the spring back into Prithvi, which has always been a sort of touchstone for the Kapoors. If Sanjana is the inheritor of an illustrious legacy, Shashi is almost part of that legacy. As he sits in his south Mumbai flat, surrounded by exquisite silver-framed memories from the past, he seems to be partly living in the world of nostalgia. He recalls silently admiring wife Jennifer's enthused industry while he himself stayed in the background. "Prithvi was her baby. Right from educating the architect by taking him on a tour of the theatres of Europe to working with play groups, she was at the forefront." Now he likes to portray himself as the quintessential family man, content doting on his older grandchildren -- Zahan, 6, and Shaira, 4.

Yet Shashi is hardly the home bird he would have people believe. Though he considers himself "herd retired" from Indian films, he continues to act in sporadic foreign films. Like Jinnah in Pakistan and England, Dirty British Boys in England and Side Streets in the US -- the three films he did last year. Jinnah, in which he plays archangel Gabriel, has just been shown in London and has already stirred a controversy. Then there is Prithvi Theatre, from which he draws emotional sustenance. "Papa's role in Prithvi is much larger than he is willing to admit," says Sanjana. "Every idea is bounced off him."

Reviving the theatre repertory Prithvi Players is also a cherished dream of Shashi's, but one that's likely to remain so for a while. For, as Sanjana puts it, "Economically, a full-fledged theatre repertoire is unviable in Mumbai. Papa's a dreamer and not much of a realist." Of course, papa dear can continue to dream because he knows there are others who will fulfil those dreams.

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