In an interview with Lachmi Deb Roy, actor, director and writer Makarand Deshpande talks about his love for the stage, the difficult times theatre actors are going through and on his play Sir Sir Sarla to be aired on television.
How is theatre coping with the difficult times?
Stage production has come to a halt; I feel bad not getting to perform on stage for seven months. Life is tough—running a theatre company without any revenue isn’t easy. I am now concentrating on writing scripts. I have written my dream project and the final draft is done, but I don’t know when I’d be able to do it. Nataks face a lot of limitations: even if stage plays start, I don’t think people will have the money to afford it. It’s expensive to run theatres with just 40 per cent capacity; increasing ticket rates is also not going to work. Generally, we travel throughout the country for our shows, but now we have to do stage performances only in Mumbai.
On Sir Sir Sarla….
Old Sarla (Sonali Kulkarni) became a teacher. All the students grew up and so we had to replace old Sarla with a new Sarla (Aahana Kumra). Aahana had worked with me in a play and I found the energy of the character in her. I have a terrific team and the content is great so we will not falter. Talks were on even before the pandemic to make it into a teleplay; now I feel it’s the best time to go on air. We have spoken to Zee about how to retain the essence of a stage play on television; otherwise it will become any other serial.
What would you choose between films, stage and web series?
Stage is my life and nothing is more important to me.
Among the new actors, whose craft do you like the most?
Aditi Pohankar, who has done a web series called She. I find her to be extremely promising. Vijay Varma is good and Pratik Gandhi, who plays Harshad Mehta, is fabulous. Pratik played the role of ‘Sir’ in the Gujarati version of Sir Sir Sarla.
Future projects….
You will see me in RRR, a film directed by S.S. Rajamouli. I am also doing a film with Ram Gopal Varma. There are three Marathi films ready for release, and a web series I am working on.
What’s your opinion on web series….
I simply love them…there are so many episodes and the characters have a longer graph. Importantly, unlike television, web series are not TRP based, otherwise a character is often removed on TV if TRP is low for a particular scene.
How is your experience in Bollywood?
Wonderful! I always felt at home. I never strove to be a star. And theatre being my first love, I never struggled to get a role in a film.
Lessons learnt from the pandemic….
We are going back to our traditions, like taking shoes off when we’ve been out of doors. The pandemic has made us realise that it is time for us to slow down in life.
