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MAHESH DATTANI'S DANCE LIKE A MAN ccc

- Staged by Lillette Dubeyccc c
by Vasanti Sankaranarayanan, Chennaiccc
e-mail: vasanthi40@yahoo.comccc
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April 2002cc

Recently the much acclaimed Lillette Dubey production of Mahesh

Dattani's celebrated play, "Dance Like a Man was staged in Chennai at the
Music Academy auditorium.cc

The hall was full and expectations were high on all counts; Mahesh
Dattani is well known to Chennai audiences as Madras Players have
staged many of his plays at different times. Dance like a Man itself was
staged at Museum Theatre a few years back, directed by Mithran
Devanesan. Mahesh himself has conducted theatre workshops in Chennai
and is a very familiar figure. Lillette Dubey is also known to Chennai
audiences through her film appearances in "Zubeida" and "Monsoon
Wedding". Lillette Dubey¶s production has also been staged as Supper
Theatre by Taj Coromandel Hotel a few years back. cc

During the Press Conference held by The Crafts Council, sponsors of the
play in Chennai, vital details with regard to the play were revealed. The
play has so far had 159 stagings; it has traveled to various cities in India
and abroad. Prominent among the stagings were the ones in New York
and in Edinburgh during the theatre festival. Rave reviews were given
wherever it was staged. New York Times, prestigious for its theatre
reviews has given it a good review. Yet, in spite of all that, this writer
found it disappointing. Being probably the lone voice in this matter, it
requires some explanation and substantiation.cc

This play is of great importance to South India, especially Chennai, as the

main protagonists are two Bharatanatyam dancers, past their prime and
their reflections on the past and how it affects their present. Mahesh is
exploring through this play two key aspects; the general inhibitions to a
man taking dance as a career and that too a dance which is usually and
traditionally performed by women; the relationship between a husband
and wife who have, contrary to all public impression of being a happy and
well suited couple, grown apart and have done enough harm to each
other; how their own thwarted ambitions and frustrations affect their own
daughter who is in love with a man who has nothing to do with the art
scene at all. Mahesh, true to his tradition of writing has created various
layers in this play. His language is very accessible as it is closer to the
speaking rather than the literary language. There is humor, which can be
understood by any viewer. But, beyond all that, there is pathos, the
pathos of human predicament, which he explores in a subtle fashion. Most
of the directors tackle Mahesh Dattani plays in a direct, upfront manner.
 They never bother to go beyond the lines and bring in the main emotion,
the hidden pathos and irony that Mahesh expresses. Lillette Dubey, in her
production has also done just that. To this writer, this is the bane of a
Mahesh Dattani play - that directors tend to take the easy way out without
fully exploring the intentions of the playwright.cc

Mahesh deals with real life situations in his plays. So, the script and stage
directions are always realistic. But, if the directors try to present it in a
realistic manner, with no reflection, introspection and subtlety, the play
becomes a comedy and nothing more. In the Lillette Dubey production,
the sets and props on stage were too realistic and cluttered. The
reproduction of an upper middle class drawing room reminded one of
Parsi plays, which try to do the same. The sets detracted the audience's
attention without contributing anything to the actual play. The sets were
dead as far as the play was concerned. They did not give any energy to
the players. In fact, the stage only limited their movements and made
them artificial.cc

O.S. Arun provided the background music. The music by itself was not
bad. But, what it did to the play was again distracting the attention of the
audience from the main plot and emotion. The usage of Bharatanatyam
notations and aalaps did not have any element of surprise in them. In
fact, they only did the expected in such situations. The music was too loud
and it overwhelmed the acting; it was almost as though the actors and the
director were seeking the help of music to cover up the shortcomings in
acting. cc

But, the most disappointing aspect of the play was the quality of acting
itself. Except for Vijay Krishna who took the role of the protagonist and
his father, all the others were very disappointing. Lillette Dubey's acting
took a downward plunge because she fell into the trap of showing a South
Indian Bharatanatyam dancer as perceived by the rest of India. To say the
least, it was stereotypical, parodying the gestures of a Bharatanatyam
dancer and throwing tantrums like a shrew. If the aging dancers of the
South like Padma Subrahmanyam, Chitra Visweswaran, Sudharani
Raghupathy or Kalanidhi had witnessed this show, they would have
protested vociferously against this caricaturing of one of their kind. The
net result was that the actors managed to get a few laughs out of the
audience; but, they failed to bring out the pathos or irony built into the
play. cc

This kind of surface exploration of sensitive plays actually does more

harm than good to the playwright. The fact that audience reception was
good wherever it went is not an encouraging factor. It only goes to show
that the audience perception can easily be influenced by media hype and
the glamour that surrounds anything which comes from Bombay. Would
justice ever be done to Mahesh Dattani and his plays by serious theatre
directors and actors? cc
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