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Dec 6, 1999
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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 |
