It is a busy morning when actor-director Akash Khurana answers our call. A premiere week can be a jittery one for most playwrights and actors, but the veteran looks to be in good spirits. His three-actor production, The Tragedy of Ham MacLear, is on its first five-day run across the city stage.
“I started to revisit his works during the pandemic of COVID-19, and suddenly found them too familiar,” he admits. This, and the mental health concerns that arose in that period, sparked a re-examination of the works. “As a senior citizen myself, and having done over 40 years of theatre, I thought of the time I’d hang up my boots. For actors, memory is a big thing. It is a key tool upon which our work hinges, and we build on it,” Khurana shares.
Akash Khurana in costume during a rehearsal before the premiere performance. Pics Courtesy/Akvarious Productions
Echoing this thought, the shows will be followed by a conversation with mental health professionals discussing the struggle. Producer Akarsh Khurana says, “We hope to team up with educational and mental health institutions going forward.” The story of Ham MacLear revolves around a Shakespearean actor slowly descending into dementia. The play touches on the aspect of the mind that is at the core of an actor’s craft. “This is a man so imbibed in the works of Shakespeare that he speaks the verses, not in the context of a play or performance, but sometimes as a language he can recall instinctively,” Khurana explains.
The play also opened in Mumbai yesterday on the birth and death anniversary of Shakespeare. “And Miguel De Cervantes, too. To think of it, the story is about a man who is tilting against the windmills of his mind. It [the timing] just fell in place,” the director laughs. The language, costume, occasion and the use of sonnets 116 and 30, play to the several layers of meta-theatre that drives the production. The name, Ham MacLear, is itself a riff off Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear.
Khurana with Mantra (left) and Garima Yajnik (right) on stage
“We also wanted to explore art as therapy, where his proteges [played by Garima Yajnik and Mantra] turn to art to help him slow the decline of his mind,” Khurana shares, echoing Polonius’ line from Hamlet — Though this be madness, there is a method in’t.
In that sense, the thespian has a touch of favouritism for the Bard. He remembers growing up with the verses, learning them through his educational years, and later on stage. “A larger objective was to bring these verses back to the Gen Z and Gen Alpha audience. For me, to miss out on Shakespeare is a loss incomparable. Unfortunately, these days some of the English courses also skip out on teaching the works,” he shares.
ON Today, 7 pm (NCPA); April 25 to 27, 7 pm (Rangshila)
AT Godrej Dance Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point; Rangshila Auditorium, Aram Nagar Part 1, Andheri West.
LOG ON TO ncpamumbai.com; in.bookmyshow.com
COST Rs 675 onwards (NCPA); Rs 650 onwards (Rangshila)
