Kalki Koechlin is an Indian actor of French descent. She has worked in theatre, films and in television. She has been appreciated for her work in films such as Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani (2013), Margarita, With A Straw (2014), That Girl In Yellow Boots (2011), among her other work. For theatre she was awarded the MetroPlus Playwright Award for THE SKELETON WOMAN, which she wrote. Some of her theatre productions such as TRIVIAL DISASTERS, COLOUR BLIND, HAMLET, THE CLOWN PRINCE have had a successful run. In this interview she talks about her directorial debut, challenges and inspiration for her latest play, THE LIVING ROOM, soon to be staged at NCPA's theatre festival Centrestage.
By Nishtha Juneja
Nishtha Juneja (NJ): You have written as well as directed this play. How was your experience? Kalki Koechlin (KK): It was exhausting, but it was an all-round learning experience. As a director you are not only directing the actors, you are directing the set, the music and the whole production of the play. As a writer, you are constantly re-drafting, re-adapting things because when you start working with the actors, they also bring their own ideas to the table. It was a full-time job for a few months.
NJ: How did the play materialise? KK: I randomly wrote a two-page scene between 'death' and an old woman two years ago. Then I left it. Six months later I found it. I was out of work then, so I started writing again. I wrote and wrote and came up with the first draft. At that time it was called 'The Play On Death'. I read it to some friends who were actors to get a sense of whether it was working as a play. They gave their objective view. It was funny. People were laughing. I decided to take it up the next time I got free, which was May this year.
That is when I had a couple of months off from work. I took that time to check on the actors I wanted to work with. I called them up and luckily all of them wanted to do the play. I did not even do the casting for the play. I picked up the actors I wanted to work with.
Death is such an obvious topic of discussion. It's the one thing that is common to everybody. I don't know why, but it keeps coming up in my life. I grew up reading philosophies of Aurobindo, Vivekananda and J.Krishnamurthy. For me this question of existence has always been interesting. Hindu philosophy has a lot to say about the cycle of life and death - why death is so important in order to learn and progress.
I have also been influenced by Woody Allen. I like his sense of humour and he discusses existentialism a lot. I like the Japanese Manga called 'Death Note', where death is personified as a character. The story is about how he messes up and how he cleans up after that.
Although, I did not consciously start with any of these thoughts, I guess they were there at the back of my head.
NJ: Did you face any particular challenges in your writing and direction? KK: One of the big challenges was to decide what to keep and what to remove. Each actor brings in so many things. Every day you have many brilliant ideas. Then you have to think everything around that one idea. It's very easy to get side-tracked. The exploration period is the most fun and the most disturbing. It takes you in hundreds of different directions. A good director is someone who knows how to pick the right things. If you have good actors, you will always have good ideas. The ideas need to be directed in one direction - finding that one point of view to showcase.
As a writer, I have no discipline. I am not a writer. I wouldn't call myself a good writer. I am always waiting for inspiration to fall from heaven. I am a lazy writer. I write when I am pushed when I have no other work. Writing is a difficult process. I only write when I really have a good idea or something disturbs me. Most of my writing comes out of angst. Writing is almost a therapy for me.
NJ: What does theatre mean to you? KK: Theatre is community. Learning to co-exist, take and feed off each other. The process of theatre is so much about understanding the other person on stage, reacting to the other person. It is a lot about give and take. It is almost like a life lesson, that's why I keep coming back to it. It makes you richer by learning about things and human beings. We understand things that are different from us.
Acting is one side of theatre - it is the reflection of how we treat each other in real life.
*Nishtha Juneja likes to act and write about theatre. Nishtha Juneja is passionate about dance and food and has completed a post-graduate diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute for Communication (XIC).
