THEATRE TALK WITH MANAV KAUL
All the world is a
stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
~William Shakespeare~
We all see Mumbai as a
City of Dreams but have we ever wondered how people actually land up to this
city and what really it takes to live that dream? Well, India is precisely a
land of villages and small towns where millions of dreams take birth and then
those dreams mobilize these artists to places where they strive to make the
best out of it. One such dream is being lived by Manav Kaul, an ace theatre
director, filmmaker, playwright and actor. Manav has emerged as a brilliant
actor in Bollywood, most recently in Citylights and Kai Po Che. He has been
doing great work in theatre and his notable plays include Shakkar ke Paanch Daane, Peele Scooter Wala Aadmi Bali
aur Shambhu, Ilhaam, Red Sparrow, Color Blind. Currently,
he is shooting for Prakash Jha’s upcoming film, Gangajal 2 in Bhopal. He was
invited by Vihaan Drama Works for a theatre talk on ‘Point of View of a Director.’
Manav Kaul is a Kashmiri from Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh. He began his career in performing arts through nukkad natak. Soon, he moved to Bhopal and started attending plays at Bharat Bhavan, worked on his skills and trained himself in stage acting. He shifted to Mumbai 15 years ago to fulfill his dreams as an actor. He made his acting debut in Jajantaram Mamantaram, and later launched a Hindi theatre group ARANYA.
Manav has a fascinating
philosophy of making important decisions. Whenever he feels “What am I doing
here”, he decides to move on because he is not meant for it and that is how he
ends up trying something new every time. After a
few plays, he realized that stage acting is not his thing and decided to quit.
While sitting at home, he began writing poems, short stories and plays. Most of
his plays have a unique poetic style which is real and simple.
Over few cups of tea at Café Tea Talks, Manav shared his life experiences with aspiring theatre artists and youngsters of Bhopal. For years, Manav experimented with his career options as an artist from being an actor to a writer, then a director and gradually a filmmaker. Also, he feels that theatre needs to improve. We should not be giving moral messages at the end of every act because it will hardly make any difference. There is no good in telling people something that they already know. Instead, we must focus on our inner happiness. We must first act for ourselves, not for the audience. He believes that when we do not know what are we going to do next, life becomes fun. So it’s good to live it with some suspense. He never planned what he will be, how will he do it. He lived life as it came. And he says- “I have been moving places; from small towns to metros and to countries and so on. I play with my life and have utmost fun in everything I do.”
This casual tea talk gave rise to many interesting conversations and lastly, Manav recited one of his beautiful poems for the audience (Watch video).
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