Theatre & Dance: Special Series; Mahesh Dattani

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Dec 6, 1999

SPECIAL SERIES

Mahesh Dattani, 41
Playwright

THE LEADER
If Dattani can, anybody can," says Mahesh Dattani. See if you can. Thirteen plays, including three commissioned for the BBC. Annual lectures in the US. Three plays on Indian gays, Do the Needful for BBC, the recent A Muggy Night in Mumbai and the path-breaking Dance Like a Man. Those who scream "fringe" should know better; in 1998 Dattani received the Sahitya Akademi Award for Final Solutions, a gripping play on communalism, the only time it has gone to a playwright in English since its inception in 1955. Theatre director Alyque Padamsee calls him one of the "most serious contemporary playwrights".

So what's Dattani doing now? He's built an amphitheatre-cum-studio in Bangalore where he holds workshops to pay for his productions and a livelihood. "This is the future of theatre in India," he says. "We'll see an explosion of such places for theatre in the future as interest spreads. We have to nurture new talent in every language." He adds: "I want more Dattanis, more playwrights, that's when there will be a cultural vibrancy." Go on. If he can, can't you?

-Stephen David

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