Birth of a Play: The Documentation of a Process An Interview with G. P Deshpande Earlier this year the well-known Marathi playwright G. P. Deshpande was invited to participate in an unusual project. The idea was for him as a playwright to take part in a workshop with a group of six actors (four male and two female) and director/actor Vinay Sharma, all members of the Calcutta-based Hindi theatre group Padatik, to see if a play could evolve out of the interaction. It was open-ended, as all experimentation is. STQ followed the entire process closely, holding frequent sessions with G. P. Deshpande, as well as discussions with the workshop participants. Below is the documentation of the process as it unfolded, almost day by day. G. P. Deshpande in conversation with STQ on 25 May, after the first two days of the workshop. STQ: What was the idea behind a workshop like this? GPD: I don't even know if a workshop like this has happened before in India or whether it will be useful or not; it's yet to be seen. But one of my directors in Bombay said, what is the point of doing a workshop like this with actors? This should be done with directors. We began with this idea that if you have a narrative or the bare outline of one, or a storyline ... how does it work itself out into a play. And supposing you have the actors' cooperation in that process itself, what kind of benefit will accrue to the actors and to the playwright? Accordingly we decided to try it out. It all began on the 23rd of May-I told them at some length the storyline I had in mind and the main characters involved. STQ: That you'd thought of before? GPD: Yes, that I'd thought of before . this was something which I had been wanting to try out for a while. STQ: And what was that? GPD: A storyline like this: there is a small group, which on the face of it, is doing social work or reformist work. And there is a couple-the husband is rich and very supportive of the wife. And the wife is a typical liberal person, to a certain extent also naive, perhaps; but driven by some kind of humanism, as it were. She gets involved with this group, thinking that they're doing something very useful. So ... when they need money, she makes it available to them. If they ask her to do small jobs, she does it for the group. It's a very small group in which there is a couple and two other people involved. Gradually what happens is, this group gets involved in some kind of militant/ terrorist activity, including a lot of violence. And this lady is quite unaware of it. She still takes their non-violent affirmations quite seriously. I told this group of six actors and actresses that I'm not interested in discussing politics here. This play is not about the politics of terrorism at all. Terrorism or violence here serves as a backdrop and it is a sort of 'given' in the situation. Now, some foreign money comes to the group. For the first time this group faces the problem of where to keep this money. And so they decide to request this lady to route it through her joint account in the bank, and then withdraw it a couple of days later, and explain it to her husband. In this group there is the couple that I told you about and the third person who has been jilted at some point by his female co-group member, and he has not been able to live it down. He thinks that this is the time to get it out and therefore he turns-or probably he's already turned-into an informer and he spills the beans. The doctor husband gets harassed and says, I put the money there, that although his wife had put the money there, he had asked her to. So it's a moral dilemma for everybody concerned. The doctor husband takes the position that when you're involved, I too am partially involved and I shall own up to it. And his wife says but why should you, when you didn't even know that it was there? I should've been arrested! And he's obviously a fairly rich man of the city and knows his way around. Meanwhile this other lady confronts this informer, saying, have you done this and since when are you doing this? Why did you do this? So he says, that's a silly question you're asking me. I've been in politics a long time-how does it matter now? You want me to tell you since when I'm an informer? What made you ask this kind of a question? And supposing I say no, I'm not an informer, you won't believe me. So she said, okay then answer another question-how did you get everybody arrested except me? How come I got left out? Out of sheer vengefulness he says, if you want me to answer that question you'll have to let me hold you in my arms for a while. She thinks it over and agrees on the condition that he answers the question. And then when he actually holds her in his arms, he softens because he's always looked upon her as an ideal and those things start coming back to him. So he says, ever since I met you for the first time, I've always longed for you. And maybe my desire for you had never been a particularly moral one-for all you care-but it's been there. And when I was a member of the core group, I proposed that in a group like this, there ought to be a non-member member who's not technically a member but is effectively so, always kept informed- and if it is a woman it is better, her movements are less suspect than those of a man; and you must make sure that no paper ever mentioning her name is preserved in the office. Because, even at that time I thought that this kind of job involves danger. And I'm unable to explain this and perhaps you would not even think of me as capable of that kind of kindness, but it is true. Now that you hold me in your arms, I must say this, that I always thought if something goes wrong, you should not get into trouble; I don't care what happens to the rest of them. So then she said-this doesn't seem to be the whole story. There's something that you're still hiding from me. He laughs and says-if there's something I am hiding from you, forget it. I'm not going to tell you. You have held me in your arms once and then you want so many answers in the bargain-and I know what you're heading towards; but I would not know the answer to those questions even if you were to actually marry me! She says she only has a simple question-did he make it a condition with the police, before he gave the game away, that she should be left out? At which point of time he breaks down slightly and says, yes, I did. Then she says-you've not only taken revenge on those 15 people who're jailed, but you've denied me my history; now there's no record that I've worked. You've erased my past, ruined my present and I have no future left. Then she goes to that other woman and says, we're very sorry that you had to go through all this, your husband is in jail. So we've betrayed you. But I want to make sure that you don't take this confession to mean that I think our politics was all wrong. But we've personally betrayed you, I agree, and have come here to take whatever punishment you choose to mete out. So this lady says-what punishment? I had made some decisions and I have paid the price for it. How do you come into the picture? Besides, how do you decide whether your politics was right or wrong? You don't have to answer me. But find an answer for yourself, you're going to need it. My only regret is that I did something and my husband is suffering for it. In other words, it's a mis-match of crime and punishment. So, this is what it is. I said, these are the characters-now work it out. So first we decided to take the last situation, where these two ladies meet. So I said, now do it-you know the story; think of a situation where they'll meet-who'll lose her temper, who'll not lose it, let your instincts work. So four of them played it out-whatever they could remember of it. I said, just improvise. This is the situation-now you put it in the lines. Now while that was happening, lines started coming to me, naturally; I could see it happening. So at one stage I started reacting, and said, hold on, supposing this lady starts saying such and such a thing, and gave them some lines and asked the two girls in the group to react to them.