Directed Feisal Alkazi needs no introduction. The television and theatre director has been working to promote the art not only as a professional but also as a counsellor, trainer and as an educationist. In fact, his successful play Gathered Leaves will see its 17th outing today.
“This is not a new production. It opened in April 2018 and has travelled across the country,” states the director, who says the play has stuck a chord with Indians. Gathered Leaves is the story of a family whose members have successfully avoided gathering in the same room for 17 years. But when the patriarch turns 75 and the three generations finally meet each other together, it ensures a dramatic, comic, poignant, and thought-provoking situation. “It has been showcased in small to large theatres, to an arena style audience at the Odd Bird and twice in the intimate setting of people’s living rooms.”
The popularity of Gathered Leaves could be attributed to the fact that it deals with a situation which is close home – a range of characters aged from 16 to 63, to break the generational divide amongst theatre aficionados. It deals with an off-putting retired bureaucrat chauvinistic as they come, a housewife, who looks as if she has been catering to him all her life and even includes a character having autism. A whole world wrapped up on one stage, if it were. The play deals with the patriarch trying to make amends for the kind of person he has been to his children and grandchildren and touches a deep chord. Alkazi admits he hasn’t changed the play at all from the original, except for the names.
The director, who has authored children’s books, has been busy with heritage education in Hyderabad, where he trains teachers across a spectrum of schools – private, public and those for the visually challenged and hearing impaired. This is his passion and he’s done it even Srinagar for seven years where he trained kids and children whose fathers had been shot by terrorists, to help them experience the positivity of Kashmiri culture and heritage. He took 22 trips to the valley from 2004 and has written manuals and training guides for teachers as well.
So how does he pack it all into a day? “I write from 6:30 to 8:30am and then hold a theatre workshop or rehearsal in the morning and one in the evening. I like to do diverse things and they are all interlinked, its like a cross fertilisation. I love my work,” admits Alkazi. His next play in Hindi is one to wait and watch out for. To be staged at the Sriram Centre on the dilemmas of young couple, it’s sure to resonate with a lot of millennials and one to look forward to. On: November 1; 6:30pm At: CD Deshmukh Auditorium, India Habitat Centre