The face of Primetime Theatre Co is its actress-director Lillete Dubey, but now a younger generation steps in. Lillete Dubey's daughter Ira Dubey is the Festival Director for SHORT+SWEET Mumbai- a festival that has its roots in Australia, but which has had editions in various parts of the world. Now it's Mumbai's turn, and leading the show is Ira Dubey. Ira leads us on excitedly to what she believes may be the next best thing for younger and newer theatre audiences in the city.
How did you embark upon the idea of getting Short+Sweet to Mumbai?
I had no idea about the concept at all till earlier this year. There was the first ever Short+Sweet in Delhi last year and as a close friend of mine was acting in it, I happened to go for that single performance. Short+Sweet Delhi then came to Mumbai about 9 months ago to the Comedy Store and I just loved the concept. I promptly met up with the Executive Artistic Director Mark Cleary the following evening, set up a meeting for the next day and set out to convince my mother and Primetime to get involved. I have been working with my mother closely over the past 5 years as an actor and as an assistant director in productions like SAMMY, WEDDING ALBUM, 30 DAYS IN SEPTEMBER, LOVE ON THE BRINK, ADHE ADHURE and others. Mom and Primetime's focus however has been to promote original English writing by Indian playwrights and while I do believe and support her in that aim, I have also often discussed how we could expand our activities at Primetime by involving younger audiences. And, so it's happened.
Moreover, Mumbai being the home of Bollywood and television shows, a lot of talent in the areas of writing, acting and direction is concentrated here. This would be the ideal place to do something like this which could give a platform to a host of fresh talent. Besides Short+Sweet is also ideal for today's youngsters- a generation that thrives on "short form", sms, and instant gratification. Younger audiences who may not have the patience for a 2 hour play will get a chance to see theatre in its purest form (we dont encourage audio visuals and other media and stick to a 10 minute piece of theatre) with a rich, fun mix of plays, genres and themes and this will hopefully create newer theatre going audiences. Hopefully someday people will choose to come watch a play and not go watch a movie only.
What kind of plays can we expect from the festival in Mumbai?
You will find a rich diversity in the themes and styles - comedies, reflective pieces, character driven pieces, fantasies, drama... the plays range from romances between inanimate objects (The Fat Lazy Bumpy), dramas and sci fi elements in a store where mannequins come to life (It's The Quiet Ones You Have To Watch Out For), young couples arguing about fidelity (Testing Waters), prison dramas (Main Thak Gaya Hoon) to fantasy spoofs (Because The World Needs Unicorns) and dark comedies (The Chocolate Affair) to very contemporary, relationship based pieces that address themes like social networking and gender and sex changes (Fab New World & HE & SHE), and others. We have two Hindi plays out of 20 this year. 70 per cent of the writers are Mumbai based and this was the focus. About 10-20 per cent of the plays are from Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore and about another 10 per cent are International scripts that have been working well across the world for about a decade.
Was there a committee involved for the selection of the plays?
The plays that are original and not more than 10 minutes long are submitted to a centralized S+S website - then the S+S team in Sydney, in this case- Alex Broun, playwright and festival director in Sydney, and mom and I shortlisted the 30 odd scripts. While Alex's insight was very useful, it was important that we could assist him because having done theatre here, we have a sense of what can possibly work best here. It was basically Alex and me working together and then the shortlisted plays were finally approved by mom.
Apart from the sponsorship from YES Bank, is there any kind of technical or financial support that Primetime Theatre Co is getting from the Australian company that franchises this festival? Is there a period of commitment involved?
Short+Sweet Sydney has been around to support us on procedures and protocol and on the admin, logistical and marketing fronts. Monies we have raised by ourselves. It is solely local sponsorship. We have not worked out the period of committment beyond a year at this stage.
A 'two minutes' Maggie idea is digestible. A 10 minutes play on the other hand is something of a challenge....
The benefits of a 10 minutes piece can be manifold- there is diversity, and short capsules would be perfect for waning attention spans. Also for writers, a 10 minutes piece is actually an art form akin to writing a short story, as in our play PRECOITAL- a conversation takes place between a lady applying henna and the bride whose hand she is decorating. Whether or not, the story is complete in itself, it must make sense as a complete 10 minutes piece of theatre, with a beginning, middle and end that the audience can understand. Twists are popular in 10 minute pieces, shock elements work well too but all plays need not have these. A 10 minutes piece is a challenge for a writer to convey enough for an audience to get interested and yet leave with some impact. So whether a twist, whether a question, or whether a warm after effect, the aim is to involve the audience in that 10 minute experience and make it a shared experience as all theatre must be. When you only have 10 minutes, the extent of your imagination as a writer is limitless. But it's a group effort and it will be up to the directors, actors and their teams to get the audience interested. We are all excited. It will be a test but it's been fun.
How did you embark upon the idea of getting Short+Sweet to Mumbai?
