A Midsummer Night's Dream

Occasionally I like to “ego surf” on Google. In the process today I came across this link on my school website. It brought back memories when I was in Class IX. One morning it was announced in the assembly that a school production would be staged. It was going to be a Hindi adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Grishm ki madhya ratri ka swapn).

The play was to be helmed by Mr. Alok Chatterjee, belonging to the well-known National School of Drama (NSD). Though I was quite shy in those days I tagged along with friends for the audition. The process for selection was new to me and it felt exciting.

In the first round all the students were asked to form small groups. Then each group had to improvise a skit on a theme allotted to it. At the end of the day students who managed to impress were called for a second round. Each of these students was then asked by the Director to read out from the script the dialogue of a character. Based on this performance a student was selected for a particular role.

I wish I could tell you that I got a plum role. Sadly I can’t. I possibly got what was the smallest of them all. I was to be one of the fairies who come along with the character Puck, the elf. I was upset and all the initial excitement disappeared. I think it was my sister who encouraged me to continue and it turned out wonderfully. No, my role didn’t become any bigger. I did get one whole dialogue assigned later. But like they say sometimes it is about the experience.

The general routine was that every day after school hours all the participants would collect in the school hall. There we would be first served hot lunch. Then practice would start and go on until 4 pm after which special school buses would drop us home.

On the first day we began from the first page of the script. This session and the few to follow were bad. The students had not learnt dialogues since it was all new. As a result the feelings wouldn’t come when you are concentrating on just reading.

I remember the whole atmosphere changed with the arrival of our second hero Demetrius. The student acting out this character came thoroughly prepared. Even though it was going to be his first time practicing he had memorized his dialogues. He brought in a vigor and professionalism. He became the benchmark from there on.

Things had been going well for some days when the bomb exploded. An extra practice session had been arranged on a Saturday following a Parents-Teacher meeting. All but one of the girls playing the lead character of Hermia did not arrive on time. An angry Mr. Alok Chatterjee on the spur of the moment asked someone else, who turned out to be my very good friend Kamakshi, to take over. Half an hour later the student in question reached the hall and was left aghast finding herself replaced. Lots of hot words and tears later peace was restored. But by then the damage had been done. Kamakshi had done splendidly and was there to stay.

The play started taking a better shape after we had a short school break. It seemed all the actors had taken advantage of the holiday to learn their dialogues. So the focus shifted on the movement on stage and adding actions. Simultaneously other departments were doing their jobs. Props were being arranged. Costumes were getting stitched. When there would be nothing to do, we girls would make use of the empty school and play antakshri (singing medley of Hindi film songs) and some would dance all the Madhuri Dixit moves.

Before we knew the dates of the actual performances came knocking. We were going to do four shows in two days – 24th and 25th October, 1994. The first day was to be an evening show. The next day would be a roller-coaster with us staging the play thrice. We all arrived well in advance at the Kamani Auditorium, Delhi. Seeing the big stage and the huge seating capacity sent chills. To top it there were going to be no microphones and we would have to rely on our vocal chords. Everybody was given a chance to test the loudness of their voice. We had people stand in different corners of the theatre to tell us if they could hear us or not. For the first time I was happy that I had only one line to recite. The best thing was that unlike movies the size of the role did not determine the treatment. We were very well taken care of by our school staff.

On 24th October eve among the audience were going to be the participating students’ family members making it all the more important for no mess ups. When the first time people clapped for a scene during the performance it brought smiles to our faces. There was a relief that the play was connecting with the audience. Overall that night I don’t think any mistakes were made. After the whole act was over, all the parents came backstage including mine. I could see their happiness writ over their faces. Mummy was all glowing even for that little part I did and I felt myself swelling with pride.

Our Director however brought us down to earth reminding of what lay ahead the next day. It was to be a real test as the audience was going to consist of school students from classes VI to XII. We knew that there would be no special reprieve in case we faltered. There were a few scary moments. Once one of the characters improvised a dialogue he had forgotten. Only we realized what had happened. I myself suddenly had my throat drying while speaking or was it screeching which Mr. Alok Chatterjee pointed out to me after the performance. But instead of feeling upset I actually felt good hearing that as it made me realize he didn’t consider my part insignificant.

Finally the last bow was taken on the night of 25th October. We were all happy that we sailed through. All those ups and downs had been worth it. Our eyes were dancing with joy, until we were hit by the fact that from now on it would be back to normal life with nothing beyond classes to look forward to.

The sudden pang of emptiness in my stomach made me realize that I had managed to accumulate for myself some priceless memories through this little journey.

(Source of photos: Delhi Public School, Mathura Road. The photos above are pages of the brochure that was printed for the play to be distributed to the audience.)

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PS: Does anyone remember this? Would you like to share any of your such experiences?