I Can't Think of a Title 'Coz I'm Stupid (that's what my result says)

It's been my longest hiatus from the keyboard to date. The days since my last post have been either crazily packed with things to do (leaving me with no time) or dull and devoid of any sort of stimulation whatsoever. You may ask, "Well, why didn't you write about the crazy days then?". Or then again, you might not, since no one actually reads my posts. And that works out pretty well doesn't it? I don't write and no one reads! Swell!

Enough sarcasm. I use plenty of it nowadays, in my day-to-day affairs and it's spilling over into something that I take very seriously indeed; writing. In the days since my last post, two festivals have come and gone at college (Grand Carnival/Festival, for the benefit of Mukta Jeevan Ashram, a home for HIV/AIDS and leprosy patients, and CRITeria '08, for the benefit of, well, I'm really not sure). Both events were smashing successes. As I write now, the organisers are cleaning up the mess left behind by the latter.

Since it's compulsory to attend a workshop or the departmental seminar, I signed up for a workshop called Theatre. Workshops in CRITteria, a techno-cultural fest, tend to fill up fast, both because they are good and because the departmental seminar is so poor. I'd normally join a workshop even if it wasn't compulsory but this semester, I've been particularly pressed for time. Nevertheless, I was glad I had joined the Theatre workshop, because the seminar was, by all accounts, thoroughly insipid. Students essentially paid Rs. 50 for a cup of tea, a samosa, a plastic file, a notepad, a disposable pen and a revision of a lesson from a paper we had last semester. The idea that seminars are meant to teach students about what's not in the books is a bit foreign in these parts.

The Theatre workshop was held the day after and it held two nasty surprises.

1. It was scheduled to be an 8-hour workshop, all about the technicalities involved in performing arts. This was a shocker; I like most people had blindly signed up, assuming it to be about 2-3 hours long.

2. The name Theatre was a misnomer. Theatre is understood to have to do with a place where plays are performed. This workshop was conducted by a guy named Jay, an assistant director on the movie Corporate. Alongside him, was a guy called Nitin, an assistant music director.

The workshop turned out to be a 6-hour borefest. I managed to have some fun, because, as a demonstration, a bunch of people, including myself, were selected to perform a short scene. I was the director of the scene. Helping me was an art director and I had a cast of five, including a lead actor, who I realised quickly, couldn't act to save his life. The script was a typical Bollywood masala film kind of scene. Boy likes girl. Girl likes other boy. Other boy likes girl back. Boy 1 persists. Friends of Boy 1 try to intervene.

It was, I felt (a view shared by some of my actors as well), hopelessly inane 
and unimaginative.
The dialogue was corny and contrived and, more importantly, given the short span of time 
the actors had to learn their lines, convoluted. We rehearsed as best as we could. I did my directorial duties (which mostly consisted of standing quietly and listening to what the actors were going to do), at which I was a real expert, having directed (or as the only reader of this blog may say, co-directed) a prize-winning (in my college) street play. I tried to explain what kind of acting I wanted and got the desired response from all but the lead actor. He seemed incapable of doing anything except grinning moronically, even as he declared publicly how much Jiah (the girl mentioned above) meant to him.

In the meanwhile, the audience was treated to a screening of scenes from Sholay. Jay told the audience about the techniques behind some of these scenes, the cameras and lenses used and so on. Not the kind of thing that your average moviegoer really wants to know about. And while we're on the topic, is it me or does every filmmaker publicly declare his 
adoration for Sholay, even if he privately thinks that the movie is actually crap? In India, the movie is spoken of in the same breath that The Godfather is in the West. There's no doubt that it was a huge hit, a phenomenon. It had everything: action, comedy, tragedy, romance, great music, a strong storyline and some powerful performances. This is all very fine, but what would these people have said about the movie if it hadn't been such a big hit. Even at the time, critics wrote it off as a "potboiler". It would have been the same movie, with exactly the things that I mentioned above. But no one would remember it. Don't go by me though; I think Star Wars is the greatest movie ever made.

So it transpired that they were actually eager to watch us perform. The actors took their positions, I shouted "ACTION!!" and the performance, I thought, was acceptable. It was a one-shot, no retakes, and there was only one awkward moment in the whole scene, where one of the actresses had her back to the audience as she spoke (a major performing arts' faux pas), and I swore at her silently.

Then the performance was critiqued. There were some valid points made, particularly with the attention paid to the costume, or rather lack thereof. Whenever Jay brought another flaw to light, it was with the remark, "The director should have noted this". I hung my head in shame at first, but positively bristled when he blamed the lead actor's lack of acting on me. "Hey," I thought ,"I can only work with what you give me." After asking the audience yet again, "So what other mistakes were there?" I muttered under my breath, "Making me director." The cast heard and smiled.

Then the guy said that he'd direct the scene now, to show us how it's done. And although he spent an inordinate amount of time flirting with one 
of the actresses, 
he obviously did a much better job (although I was secretly smug that he needed 
three takes).
He also failed utterly in getting the lead actor to act, something else that filled me with unholy pleasure.

Such was the antipathy of the audience towards him (due to the ceaseless lecturing on that movie, whose name I won't type again because I have to use italics and I'm too lazy to do that), that when I returned to my seat, many told me that I was the better director. There was one more shocker: the scene that we had just performed, far from being something that the young assistant director had rustled up the previous night for us to cut our teeth on, was a scene from an actual upcoming movie, whose name I won't mention here (although I'll be glad to tell you in person). What's more, I'd just directed parts to be played by actors such as Akshay Kumar, Arshad Warsi and Neha Dhupia.

Before the full weight of what I'd done settled, an even heavier cloud of boredom did. There were a few more scenes from THAT MOVIE, more discussion about camera angles and so on. It was all very interesting, but I'm sure the audience would have preferred something more hands-on. Small wonder half didn't turn up after the lunch break. The assistant music director took charge in the after-lunch session, putting music to lyrics written by members of the audience. Again, all very interesting, but a bit too technical and dry for the majority of the crowd.

The workshop ended with the assistant director giving his opinion on a few film-world controversies. I'm not sure if it's OK to write about what he revealed to us. But it seems that a certain rape/casting couch controversy about a now well-known director was just a
publicity stunt. The director and the so-called victim are actually good friends.  
The story even went as far as the victim hiring contract killers to bump the director off. 

That's the end of a long post (my longest yet, I believe). I always finish lamely, and this time is no exception.