Catharsis lies in the little tributes theatre artist Mohammad Ali Baig offers to his late father, theatre stalwart, Qadir Ali Baig. These intermittent emotional releases in the form of remembrances, reminisces, prayers and performances, emerge from the pits of his heart, proclaiming his reverence towards his father, who especially between 1970 and 1984, contributed immensely in making the period the golden era of Urdu and Hindustani theatre in Hyderabad.
Through every performance, Mohammad seeks to discover his father’s craft, rather than discovering himself as an actor. To him, that is far more important than to centre his attention entirely on himself. In his father’s legacy lays all the learning, he believes. With his new bio-play called Under an Oak Tree, being staged under the India Habitat Centre’s Old World Theatre Festival 2018, Mohammad has, once again, found a way of keeping his father’s teachings alive.
Set to a Mediterranean-style sound track, the play is a recounting of the time of Asaf-Jahi era that began in 1724, in the princely state of the Deccan. “A boy born in a 100-acre, 150-year old palace is exposed to the outside world in his pre-teens and no sooner than he begins to do that, he is thrown into facing the tragedy of the loss of his father,” says Mohammad.
Monsoon forms a strong emotional metaphor throughout the play, he says, with the climax showing a heavy downpour. Written by Noor Baig, also wife of Mohammad, she plays the mother in the play, who provides the context for Mohammad’s inner conflicts. “You will see her at different stages of life, like a window through which you can view the metamorphosis of her son as an individual,” says Noor Baig, the writer of the play, also Mohammad’s wife.
She adds, “This women starts as a young mother, musing on her approach to parenting, then the mother of a teenager who fears her son choosing a difficult path and finally, a mother at peace with her son’s choices, grateful for his personal and professional victories. Theirs is a close-knit relationship weighed upon by difficult choices.
There is a push and pull between a son eager to experience life, sometimes stumbling through the darkness, but succeeding all along and a concerned mother on the other hand.” For the role, she sought inspiration in her own mother who harbours philosophical views about motherhood and spirituality, and also her mother-in-law, Begum Razia Baig, on whom the character is based. Razia has produced the presentation.
Of all things Noor has set herself up for learning, inculcating empathy has been at the nodal point for many of her actions. Walking a mile in another’s shoes has helped her acknowledge how much people are capable of emoting and based on that, responding to life situations. This internalisation helps making the characters she plays ever more wholesome. She calls this practice as ‘being connected to the soul of the world’, and performance art inspires her to do that best.
Just like an actor becomes the inclusive embodiment of various aspirations, so is the medium itself. Its characteristic of including a wide range of subjects that give representation to heterogeneous causes, makes it dynamic. Mohammad understands this to be most important and, as a result, contributes to this approach by blending performing and contemporary arts, such as calligraphy, live music, folk and contemporary dance, martial arts and poetry, literature, costume, set design and music, to make his shows robustly inclusive of other creative disciplines.
His perspective of theatre is not just at a cerebral level but also at a deeply sentimental level. Sensitivity plays a huge part here as without it, the value system one is brought up with, don’t function well, and values are the touchstones for human behaviour. “The environment you are brought up in, shapes your emotions, hence your behaviour. I learnt this with each of my performances, be it in Lahore or London, Turkey or Toronto, up to the Edinburgh Fest.
You are able to get your audience to smile, laugh, smirk, weep, cry or even sob with you, because you have been exposed to a wholesomeness of emotions,” he says. The task ahead remains to maintain the decorum and prestige of a theatre professional, believes Mohammad. Theatre’s legacy must be protected, it’s sanctity must be maintained, and the heart must be allowed to flourish in creative processes that will not only preserve history, but also create it.
Date: October 22Time: 7 pm onwardsVenue: Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road.