As India witnesses protests, stories of assaults, loss of livelihoods and restrictions on women’s rights continue to surface. It can be difficult to hold on to hope. This is what Rajat Kapoor’s The Thing With Feathers turns towards — the possibility of hope even when everything around us seems to be falling apart.
Directed and written by Kapoor and presented by Aadyam Theatre, the play takes its title from Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’, in which hope is imagined as a little bird that continues to sing within the human soul. Co-written by Rabia Kapoor (Kapoor’s daughter) and Chandrachoor Rai, the play features an ensemble cast including Vinay Pathak, Mantra, Neil Bhoopalam, Bhavya Rampal, Chandrachoor Rai and Radhika Mehrotra, among others.
Set between 1900 and 1950, the play looks at a period marked by two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Spanish flu, the Indian Independence movement and political upheaval across the world. Rather than focusing on history, it follows two couples — a Punjabi couple in India and another in England — whose lives are transformed as they navigate love, loss, family, war and social expectations. Two birds observe the lives below them, becoming narrators and witnesses to a changing world.
The New Indian Express caught up with the actor-director ahead of the play’s recent Delhi premiere. Excerpts from the interview:
Q. Why did you set your story in the early 20th century?
Our times are not very different from that period (1900 and 1950) when technological growth was huge. And it looked like the world would be a better place. But it didn't quite turn out that way.
Q. The play follows two couples whose lives are altered by larger historical events. What did you want to explore about the way political turmoil enters ordinary lives?
When you're doing a play or a film, these things are kind of intangible. It's not that you have something to convey and then you start going about conveying that message. You're thinking of a story or an image that means something beyond the ordinary and it touches your imagination.
Q. The play is seen through two birds, while flight and freedom are recurring ideas. Why?
Flight is a big idea in the play. It's not just with the birds — flying is a big part of it. The play is called The Thing With Feathers, from the poem by Emily Dickinson, so birds and flying and feathers and hope and flight all come together in that sense.
Q. What about Emily Dickinson's idea of hope felt like the right starting point for this story?
Hope is the big thing in this play, that when everything is falling apart, you can still live with hope. The dramatic times of the early 20th century, when the world saw two world wars and Spanish flu and Great Depression – how does one live through all that? Not without hope.
Q. What does hope mean to you personally?
The play becomes what it does because it has come out of me. If the play is about hope, it is because I'm that person. I'm an eternal optimist, even in the darkest of times, always very hopeful for the next moment, for the next day, the next year, not just for me and for the world.
Q. Your previous theatre works have mainly been adaptations, while The Thing With Feathers is an original work. How was it to begin with a blank slate?
It's not very different, because in adaptations, there was a backing of some character or a plot idea. We had the text to guide us, but mostly what we were trying to do with it was not really the text, but something else.
In this play, we had nothing. But I've done this before. We did a play called C for Clown, 25 years back, which was also without a script and without adaptation.
This is fun in a way because you really have a blank slate. You can go anywhere. But not knowing where you're going also is a challenge. You might fall flat on your face because you have no idea what the end result will be.
Q. You have often used humour, absurdity and playfulness while dealing with difficult subjects. Why is that important to you?
I don't like boring stuff. Just because it's about a serious thing, it doesn't mean you have to be serious about it. In life, we should have this idea of playfulness and joy, no matter how difficult the subject is.
Q. You grew up in Delhi and first encountered theatre through Alliance Française. What does Delhi mean to you today?
My mother still lives there. The whole city is a reminder of my youth. I'm very nostalgic about Delhi and it's always a pleasure to come back here with the plays.
The audience is great. A lot of my friends who were there initially with the Chingari Theatre Group in the 1980s are still my very good friends. Over the last 40 years, we've remained friends. They always come and watch our plays. Ramanu, Sylvia, Manish, Surabh, they're all my very dear friends. And they'll all be there for the play.
Q. You wanted to make films from the age of 15, before theatre entered your life. Looking back, what has each medium given you?
They're very different mediums, and both bring very different kinds of joy. Making a film is incredibly difficult, but incredibly satisfying. Making a play, and then showing the play, brings you a joy that is quite unmatched. To get an audience reaction like that, show after show, day after day, is really an unmatched joy. Both things give very different kicks.