Network18's creative director Zubin Driver wants to resurrect his old passion for theatre.
Most people who get into theatre do it when they are in college and have time on their hands. But Zubin Driver, the network creative director for Network18, is an exception. He started doing theatre after completing his graduation.
He reveals that he wrote scripts in his school days too, but never took that seriously. “It was after I graduated from college that I got into theatre and started enjoying it,” says Driver, who graduted from St Xavier’s, Mumbai, back in 1991.
Soon, from writing plays, he started directing them. “I got more involved and started taking it more seriously,” he says. Though he was actively doing theatre in those days, he was clear that he wanted to be on the creative side of things, and advertising made a lot of sense. “Copywriting was something which I wanted to get into, so joining an ad agency was the most logical thing,” he explains.
But theatre was something he still did every evening. After work, he used to head out for rehearsals and used to manage both his day job as well as theatre perfectly. Soon the work load started to increase, but Driver’s passion for theatre remained undiminished.
He says that doing theatre instilled a lot of discipline in his personal as well as professional life. “You just can’t go wrong, as it is all live and each and every mistake attracts attention,” he says.
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Driver did a lot of plays for the Prithvi Theatre as well as at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA). He says that his writing abilities encouraged him to do more theatre work.
For 14 years it was a tough act to juggle his work and theatre. “But theatre gave me a creative high like no other,” he says. So the idea of being overworked never crossed his mind. He became a drama critic as well and used to review plays in Mumbai.
I quiz him about a few of his own favourites and he says it’s tough to pick one. But one play which stands out for him is Missing People, which involves three monologues that look at completely different urban experiences. He worked with Denzil Smith, one of the best-known names in Mumbai theatre circles.
The play explored the common links between a TV anchor, a housewife and her washing machine, and a mad man standing outside the Mumbai Central railway station. “It was the most difficult play I did and remains my favourite because it’s simple yet extremely complex in many different ways,” he says. Wormplay is another of Driver’s favourite plays. He wrote it almost nine years ago.
Driver also set up a theatre group called Open Theatre, and the group did more than 15 plays. The idea behind the group, according to Driver, was to encourage new talent.
“We used to get a great response,” he says, “and that was something which always egged us on to do more.”
This lasted until he joined the Network18 Group as creative director for the in-house creative agency, The Cell — now called Cell 18.
His job these days drains him completely, and he finally put an end to his beloved theatre work two years ago. “It was getting too much for me,” he admits. But he does have a strong urge to get back into it as soon as possible, and says that he will be back to active theatre pretty soon. “It’s tough to stay away from theatre for too long,” he confesses.
Meanwhile, he has started an online movement called Fight Back, which raises its voice against gender violence. “It was something which I started after hearing the news of two girls getting molested at the Juhu Marriott last year,” he explains. Fight Back is gaining momentum and has inspired active groups on social networking websites including Facebook.
So, will his next play be along similar lines? “To be honest,” he says,
“I have a few ideas, but they are not along the lines of Fight Back.” But he doesn’t discount the possibility either.
For almost two decades, theatre has been an integral part of Driver’s life. Ask him when he will return to it, and he says he hasn’t got a date in mind — but it will be “pretty soon”.
