Despite the fact that theatres are feeling the financial crisis, Mumbai-based theatre personality Sanjana Kapoor feels they are at least going to survive, if not thrive. She is also hopeful that the sudden influx of energy that the current generation is bringing to the theatre scene is exciting.
“The youngsters, especially from the metros have taken to theatre in a big way. They work on honing their skills, attend drama schools and are even making it their career,” she says.
In the city to conduct a workshop for kids on theatre, Sanjana gets rather nostalgic. She recollects, “I have a long-standing association with this city. The first time I came here was when I was 12. During my holidays I would attend the shooting of my dad’s (Shashi Kapoor) movie Heat and Dust.”
Eight years later, she came back to the city again, this time to shoot for her debut Bollywood movie Hero Hiralal, opposite Naseeruddin Shah.
But one incident she truly enjoyed and recounts with glee was the time when she took part in a theatre play for an audience in excess of 3,000 people. “Oh, it was terrifying, but fun nonetheless,” she says before adding, “The city is special but I think it’s the people here that make it even more special for me.”
Having grown up in a household of actors and artistes, from a very young age she was enamoured by the idea of getting into a travelling theatre company like her grandparents.
“However, it came as a rude shock to me that the world I dreamt of didn’t exist anymore. Several travelling theatre companies kept shutting down back then,” she says.
The big turning point in her career, however, came when she decided to debut in Bollywood with Ketan Mehta’s Hero Hiralal, but it was no fairytale, she says, “I realised I had no idea of how to work, nor the craft or technique. On the other hand, there was Naseeruddin Shah, who was exceptional.”
She then went to a drama school in New York and it was the experiences there that she recollects fondly. “I knew then that its theatre that I love,” she says.
Once back to Mumbai, she was caught in a dilemma. “I didn’t know how to go about doing the kind of work I wanted to while also gaining respect. Maybe, that’s when I gradually moved towards management rather than acting.”
This is the time she took over her grandfather Prithvi Kapoor’s theatre group Prithvi theatre. “I think being an actor-manager was something that came with the bloodline.”
For 21 years, she ran the group with considerable success. In 2002, she handed over the reins to her brother Kunal Kapoor. “I felt I had given everything I had to it and it was time for me to move on,” she says.
Today, along with Sameera Iyengar, who worked along with her for 10 years at Prithvi theatre, she runs a stage for supporting artistes and creates a platform to make art accessible.
“Art doesn’t just bring colour and joy to the soft parts of our lives but actually helps nourish one’s being,” she says.
