Celebrating the Bard

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It doesn’t really matter which era you live in when it comes to admiring Shakespeare. The bard’s work, this time a Hindi translation of the Twelfth Night — Piya Behrupiya — has again become very popular among the theatre lovers. Atul Kumar of The Company Theatre, Mumbai has directed the play that is being staged in the capital.

The play was conceptualised in the months of March and April and opened in London at the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre during the International Shakespeare Festival. Atul believes that Shakespeare manages to speak about the most contemporary concerns and thereby is still as relevant today as he was earlier. “People flock to see Shakespearean drama because they identify with its themes and plots and stories even today. The essential world that Shakespeare sketches in his plays are omnipresent and can be seen and experienced in every culture of the world. That is the greatness of the bard,” he says.
But the real surprise for Atul came in London. “We were tensed that a play in Hindi won’t be liked by the western audience and they won’t understand all the nuances that we have so lovingly crafted into the play. However, it was just the opposite — the audience knew the story scene by scene and they enjoyed it immensely from the beginning till the end. In fact, they even stood in the rain as it unfolded. They sang with us and cheered for us. It was a real high when hundreds of people came to us and told us they want more shows,” shares Atul.
To make it appealing in Hindi, the characters have been tweaked and there’s a huge leaning towards folk as well. “We have used a lot of folk songs in Bundeli and Punjabi,” he says.
There are almost a dozen folk songs in the play. All the songs are cheerful and upbeat. Atul says that this is his first musical, but the support from the cast helped him a lot. “Gagan Singh Riar, Mansi Multani helped me with compositions, Saurabh with music and Amitosh Nagpal (who has even translated the play) with lyrics,” he says and adds that some songs are old folk tunes that the team has presented in their own flavour.
In Delhi, Atul is expecting that people will enjoy the musical. On a lighter note, he concludes by saying that, “Amitosh’s translation is one of the best I have ever read of any play in Hindi.”