Theatre veteran Feisal Alkazi brings Maxim Gorky’s Russian classic The Lower Depths to Bengaluru
Along with ‘The Lower Depths’, Delhi’s Ruchika Theatre Group will also stage playwright Stephanie Jacob’s ‘Again’ at Ranga Shankara on September 27 and 28. Both the plays are directed by Feisal Alkazi. Here’s an exclusive interview…
By Reema Gowalla
Some may associate the writings of Russian literary greats with despair and anguish. But it’s also true that Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy, among others, have inspired generations of writers and artists, and they continue to do so even today. Revered theatre personality Feisal Alkazi — who has a career spanning more than half a century, helming over 200 plays — has now directed one such classic. Maxim Gorky’s 1902 play The Lower Depths chronicles the daily lives of a dozen-odd destitute people living in shared shelter near the Volga river. Delhi-based Ruchika Theatre Group is bringing The Lower Depths and British playwright Stephanie Jacob’s Again to Bengaluru, with shows lined up for September 27 and 28, at Ranga Shankara. Both the plays are directed by Feisal.
Said to be a hallmark of Russian social realism, The Lower Depths was first directed by Konstantin Stanislavski for the Moscow Art Theatre in 1902. Meanwhile, Again is a new play about a family of four, who reunite after years of estrangement. The piece explores the struggles, bonds and idiosyncrasies that shape family dynamics.
Both The Lower Depths (130 minutes) and Again (90 minutes) are presented in their original setting. In an exclusive conversation with TheatreRoom ahead of the shows, Feisal spoke about the making of the two plays, his love for Russian classics, what he thinks about art censorship in India today and more. Excerpts:
Q. What inspired you to pick Gorky’s Russian classic The Lower Depths?
A. I chose The Lower Depths because I’ve always been fascinated by the great Russian writers — be it Chekhov, Turgenev, Dostoevsky or Tolstoy. Then, of course, Gorky represents a very different social milieu, because he talks about the extremely poor people or what we would, perhaps, call the ‘dregs of society’. In fact, Gorky himself came from that. That was his background. The name Gorky that he took on later as a pen name means ‘bitter’ in Russian language. Of course, he rose to great prominence in Russian literature, because he was capturing a moment in Russian history even before the Russian Revolution of 1905 began. He managed to capture people living in a night shelter. They came from diverse backgrounds. Prostitutes, convicts, runaways, kings, beggars and junkies were all living together, not related to each other at all. But thanks to the magic of the place, they together formed a new family there. Over the years, they bonded together and friendships were developed. There were drinking companions, who could borrow money from each other. Meanwhile, they all united in hatred for the landlord and the landlady, who I suppose were representatives of some part of the powers that they had at that time.
Q. Tell us about the making of the play..
A. It’s a very powerful and moving play. To make the play, we also needed a cast, aged 18 to mid-70s. I’m very anti-makeup when it comes to my plays. It’s not very convincing, I feel. I don’t prefer dressing people up to make them look older on stage. So, my actors come from various age groups, and everybody’s playing their own age in this play. There’s no makeup at all in any of my plays. Just wash your face, get onto the stage and act, I tell them. I totally believe in that approach to theatre — you must be able to act. That’s the main thing.
It was a wonderful rehearsal process. We did about 50 three-hour rehearsals, so that’s 150 hours. But it was one-third more than I would normally do. We spent the first 20 rehearsals just reading, discussing, trying out compositions, bringing people from a night centre in Delhi to speak to us about their experiences, getting the actors to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, just to get a sense of alcoholism. Overall, it was an in-depth and immersive process.
Then, we started crafting the scenes, one at a time, and finding out how they work with the set of movements, blocking and stage picture, etc. We first opened at a small 50-seat theatre. However, for subsequent shows, we went to bigger stages. Of course, we had to think about how to create that. So, in terms of the set, we built taller walls. For the Ranga Shankara show,we’re using 10-foot walls and pushing bunk beds against it. So, there are people sleeping at different heights, like in a railway compartment. Apart from the special lighting, we have also included Russian folk music in the play.
In a bid to mimic the world outside the night shelter, we created another soundtrack, which includes the sounds of carriages, horses, rainfall, a distant church clock and tolling of the bell, among others. We have used different things at different spaces to recreate Russia of the past. It was all very challenging, but wonderful.
Q. What’s the story of Again like?
A. Again is a contemporary play, written and premiered only last year. There have been just a few shows in England, so far. It’s the story of a nuclear family — just two children and their parents. They lived happily until one day the father went off to marry another woman and create a new family.
The plot follows a situation, when they all come back together for the first time, and the dynamics that come into play. There’s a moment where things are going very well, and then things start curdling and finally they collapse as a family. What do people, particularly kids, normally do in such situations? They tend to hold on to all the beautiful childhood memories, the positive time they spend with their parents. The play opens when the husband comes back to the house after several years. The wife is there and after some time the two teenage children — Adam and Izzy — also arrive. The brother is kind of an embittered, nerdy young man, who hasn’t made a success in life yet. The sister, however, is very different. She’s promiscuous and has an outgoing personality. Although, in the beginning, there’s a lot of tension between the four of them, as the evening kind of weighs on, the old stories cement them together. So, the reality of today is that they become very diverse and or adult, while the reality of the past is that it was a close-knit family.
Q. Any special plot devices used in this play?
A. The play follows a non-linear narrative. It frequently moves between the present and the past. An interesting, fun device is used in the play — that is, at any point in the conversation, one of the characters slaps and they go back to the beginning of that conversation, and then they play it a different way. So, at one point, the narrative may be confrontational, while the next moment it’s amiable or might even turn sarcastic. It implies how many times in life we want to reconsider what we’ve said or done. Four accomplished actors in my group are leading this play, and they are doing a wonderful job.
Q. What’s your take on art censorship in India today?
A. I believe that you just have to think of the way you want to see it. There’s always that space available to us. Even in the most difficult times — for instance, during the ‘Emergency’ period [from 1975 to 1977] — plays were removed by the government. The authorities were not happy with the idea of doing certain things, which they saw as being ‘anti-state’. Even now, I think the state still exists as it existed then. But one eventually finds the ways and means. I’ll give you an example. I did Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities as a musical about four-five years ago and ran shows all over India, including at Ranga Shankara. But a lot of people described it as an ‘urban action’ play.
Even when you watch The Lower Depths, you’ll feel it is India today or any part of the world. There’re the super rich and then the majority of people who live in quite absolute poverty. You still have a country where one-third of the population goes to sleep hungry every night. So, people make the connections when they see it. You don’t really have to pronounce it as an Indian setting; you don’t need to adapt.
Q. You mentioned earlier about your fascination toward the legendary Russian writers. Their stories, however, are also associated with despair. What do you think makes them so relevant even today?
A. The Russian Revolution is a major turning point in world history. It showed how actually it’s the common man who is in power. I think all those writers who captured lives before the revolution — be it Gorky, Chekhov, Turgenev, Dostoevsky or Tolstoy — wrote in a style, with such a vast range of characters and situations, that it became possible to really explore the whole human canvas. Until today, we still read all these five writers constantly. There’s never a day when their books are not being sold. In fact, I’ve been wanting to do Crime and Punishment. I’ve got a good script for many years, and there’s one particular actor whom I want to play [Rodion] Raskolnikov [the protagonist of Dostoevsky’s 1866 novel]. But he is currently busy with some film/OTT stuff. Just recently, I also learnt that there’s a stage version now of The Brothers Karamazov, and I’d love to see it pans out on the stage.
Classics are something else. After A Tale of Two Cities and The Lower Depths, we would now like to move on to Dickens’ Great Expectations. It’s again a powerful story and theme, with some very memorable characters. I think every three-four plays, I’d like to explore a classic and just see which one has resonance for today. They’re called classics because they’ve always resonated with time.
Q. Your thoughts on coming to Bengaluru..
A. Well, it’s always lovely to return to Bengaluru. We last came to the city about seven years ago, to take part in the Ranga Shankara festival. We had brought our play A Quiet Desire, which was about the relationship between Rabindranath Tagore and his sister-in-law Kadambari Devi. Surendranath S — the Artistic Director of Ranga Shankara — had suggested that we come every year with two plays, which can be performed on Saturday and Sunday. There’s no sponsorship involved. So, we took that up, because in Delhi it’s difficult to get halls at this price. There, it’s ₹60,000 or over a lakh. So far, 14 of our plays have been staged at this venue, with The Lower Depths and Again marking the 15th and 16th, respectively.
We have already built up an audience here, and next year onward we are planning to bring one Hindi and one English play. There’s a beautiful play opening in April 2025, in Delhi. Titled Barbad, it’s an adaptation of American playwright Lynn Nottage’s 2015 play Sweat, which had won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Indian adaptation is set in a brothel in Chhattisgarh. The narrative covers the Adivasis, Naxalites and, of course, the police force.
The cast of The Lower Depths comprises Suchir Kalra (the Baron), Pamela Anand (Kvashnya), Ritvik Mohann Bhagat (Bubnoff), Pranav Bhasin (Kleshtch), Aakriti Arora (Nastya), Mini Om Saurabh (Anna), Raghav Seth (Satine), Ishan Sharma (the actor), Deepak Adhar/Sanjiv Desai (Kostilyoff), Manik Dhir (Pepel), Mahek Jangda/Vaishnavi Singha (Natasha), Juggi Bhasin (Luka), Rishabh Chaudhary (Alyoshka), Meenakshi Arora/Vickie Rai (Vassilisa) and Manuj Sharma (Miedviedieff). Sunil Arora and Radhika M Alkazi have taken care of light design for the play, while its music is scored by Meenakshi and Mahek.
Again is produced in arrangement with Nick Hern Books. Set design and light design are done by Jagan Shah and Sunil, respectively. Meenakshi has composed the music, while production work is handled by Ritvik Mohann Bhagat. The play’s cast includes Radhika (Louise), Sanjiv (Tom), Raghav (Adam) and Aakriti (Izzy).
Catch shows of the two plays on September 27 (7.30pm) and September 28 (3.30pm and 7.30pm) at Ranga Shankara. You can book your tickets here (for The Lower Depths) and here (for Again).
