Backstage dramas

If you have acted in a play, you must have also experienced the excitement of being backstage with the performance about to begin "" dressing up, remembering the lines, worrying about all kinds of things that can go wrong.

And things do sometimes go horribly wrong. Amidst this, a host of stories are born that have become part of theatre lore. When theatre people meet, they're bound to reminiscence about the backstage drama in their times.

Common among these are instances of personal scores being settled on stage if the action allows it, and opportunities snatched to hold the hand of the girl you secretly loved.

You may also be familiar with stories of actors going blank on stage, of other actors trying to improvise to fill the silences in between, and so forth.

In the good old days, there was the institution of the prompter who lurked behind the wings to be able to prompt the actor on stage. The art of the prompter requires that he says the lines without any emotion, so that the actor is left free to fill the right emotions in.

Now, after years of being a prompter, the bland rendering becomes habitual. One such prompter was once required to fill in for the main actor at the last minute.

He promptly became the most popular comedian on the Marathi stage because his deadpan rendering of lines had the audience in splits. Imagine "I love you with all my heart, I can't live without you, if you reject me I will kill myself", all said without any expression on the face or in the voice. They thought it was his style!

Once an actor was required to enter the stage carrying an open umbrella as a canopy, saying "Here enters the King, bow to His Highness!" The play had not been rehearsed with the props, and the wing space was small, so the umbrella could not pass through. The actor said his lines as he tried to enter the stage, but the umbrella got stuck in the wings and he could not enter.

He repeated the lines and tried to enter again, and failed again. After he had done this five times, the director, in sheer desperation, came and pushed him onto the stage. The man managed to enter, but flat on all fours. The audience laughed their heads off. What a disastrous start to a serious play!

In a children's play, a five-year-old had been included in the cast on the insistence of the parents. He was delightful on stage and got an important part to play. It went fine till the day of the show, when the little actors wore their costumes and did their make-up.

On seeing a demon painted all red and black, the little star started screaming in fright. No amount of explanation would convince him that these red-faced demons were actually his friends. The play could be staged only after the make-up was removed.

Then there were stories narrated to us when we were new in the field. The examples might be of actors who continued to perform in spite of broken bones and in extreme pain, just so that the show could go on.

Similarly, one of my students was doing the main role in a play. On the morning of the show we learnt that his father had died of cardiac arrest. We were all in a quandary about what would happen, as tickets had already been sold, but he decided he would complete the show before leaving for home. We were overwhelmed by his commitment, but his family might have thought he was merely thoughtless.

All this highlights the excitement and vulnerability of theatre as a live art. Every moment is full of surprises, and the beauty lies in the way the team copes with it. So there is actually a lot more drama behind the drama you see on stage!