He has had an amazing run as a director par excellence. He laughs as he mentions that he is often mistaken for Feroz Khan the actor, and often receives his fan mail. Considered one of the most gifted directors in theater today, with top movie stars vying for a role in his productions, Feroz Khan still feels that theater has a long way to go.
He came from a family where there were no actors, playwrights or artists, and Feroz says his only exposure to theater was seeing his older brother perform in college. The death of his father when he was only seven, shook Feroz very deeply. “I guess you grow up being referred to as somebody’s son. Having lost him at such an early age, I had to reinvent my identity in a hurry. Being appreciated by people while on stage in school, or taking part in elocution and debates, helped heal the void to some extent. But till today I seem to have blocked my childhood from my mind. I have no recollection of the years before my father’s death.”
Feroz studied commerce and was on his way to becoming a chartered accountant, but by then the theater bug had bitten him. “I decided to quit and focus on theatre.”
The turning point in Feroz Khan’s life came when he met the late Jennifer Kapoor (film actor Shashi Kapoor’s wife), who was deeply involved in the revival of high caliber theater, through their company Prithvi Theaters. Feroz became the artistic director of Prithvi Theaters and started the Annual International Festival of Plays, which he ran from 1984 to 1992.
“Theater has this great quality that you can do a very good job with very little money. When you are fighting heavy odds your imagination and creativity are charged. Those years saw some outstanding work being done at Prithvi and elsewhere. Then I became an executive producer for the movie Ajooba, because of my association with Prithvi. Though the movie was termed a flop my cultural exposure during that period was tremendous. I managed to see some of the finest theater work at the Bolshoi and other theaters around Moscow and Leningrad and that was a great growing experience.”
The play that really took everyone by storm was Mahatma versus Gandhi. It catapulted you in the eyes of the world as a director of international caliber. You also took film actor Naseerruddin Shah in the role of Gandhi, and since then you have had movie actors in pretty much all your plays. How does that work?
In Mahatma vs. Gandhi we stuck to the known truth and didn’t invent anything. I also did my own research, met people, and based on that and additional reading, cut out or added a few factual incidents. There is an instance when Gandhi, before his death, tells an assistant that there were two people he could not convince in his lifetime, his Muslim friend from Kathiawar, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and his son, Harilal. This was painful to him and he considered it a great defeat. The play focused on the private anguish of a public figure, a man who could transform the soul of a nation but could not the soul of his own son Harilal. It touched people very deeply. That was what I was exploring, and I had to be careful because in these times of religious fundamentalism it is very easy to denigrate Gandhi and bring him down.
I felt Naseeruddin Shah would do complete justice to Gandhi. He had been itching to play Gandhi, having lost out on the role in the movie to Ben Kingsley. He had also expressed a keen desire to work with me. All the movies stars have been very disciplined, and I have had no problems. Plus I guess it is a good marketing strategy. We reach a wider audience as well. Still the first criteria is always if they will do justice to the role.
You chose Shabana Azmi and Farookh Shaikh for Tumhari Amrita which traces a love relationship of two people over 35 years through letters, lovers separated by destiny and changing priorities. The script seemed picture perfect.
Tumhari Amrita was a tribute to Jennifer Kapoor. I was planning to do just four or five performances. Before that I had done big productions with a large cast and I thought I’d do something different. Javed Akhtar, Shabana’s husband, wrote the perfect script. I also wanted people who spoke the language well. Urdu has certain nuances, which have to be captured well while speaking. I have always felt Shabana and Farookh would have made a perfect couple, had they married, and in my mind I almost saw them in a picture frame that you keep next to your bed. The two created a perfect play between them.
For Salgirah, which deals with the issues of divorce and its repercussions on the man woman relationship with all its intricacies and complexities, you chose a real life husband and wife team of film actors Anupam and Kiran Kher?
Anupam met me at a party and said he wanted to do a play with me and kept calling me. Kiran met Javed saheb on her own and I liked the idea of her playing the wife’s role. Another consideration was that there would be an exciting chemistry between the real husband and wife. Both of them had previous marriages behind them, so that’s why I thought it’ll work very well. Kiran is very disciplined, and kept him on a tight leash. Anupam is a very competent actor but he has so many things going on that he gets unfocused and Kiran ensured his focus was on the play throughout.
I think they identified with quite a few things. In fact at one point they just could not stop crying, perhaps something touched a chord somewhere. Salgirah was the result of my traveling in America. While doing Tumhari Amrita, most of the people my wife and I met seemed fine in the first 30 minutes and after that the masks started falling off and we saw the sheer terror within the relationships they were going through. Being in this country there are so many other pressures put together, but at least it is an equal relationship unlike in India. Here society supports you, you can express what you feel and importantly, you can attain economic independence.
In India there are still double standards. Your mom may be a women’s rights activist, but when it comes to you., she may not be as sympathetic. It is said that apart from the death of your child, divorce is the most difficult thing anyone can face. We did give it a fantasy ending where they reconcile after their divorce, but then we have seen people do that. In America people connected more with the play, it became therapeutic for many people. Still I personally felt the play lacked the depth I would have liked it to have and it meandered into being a romantic fantasy.
Perhaps your most touching play recently is the mega hit Salesman Ramlal, an adaptation of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Actor Satish Kaushik as a Bombay salesman struggling to chase his dreams has given a marvelous performance. There are some very touching dialogues in the play.
I don’t think I have cried as much as I have while reading and rereading the script of Salesman Ramlal. Each one of us can identify with some aspect of the play. There is a part where his son says.. “Main kuch nahin hun, main kuch nahin banane wala hun, par zindagi mein kuch na hona koi buri baat to nahin hai, main jo hun so hun, par aapka beta hun..main is shaher ki bheed se bhag jaana chahta hun, main zindgai ki daud main sab se aakhir mein aana chahta hoon” ( I am a nobody and I am not likely to become some body but not be somebody is not a bad thing. I am still your son. I want to escape the , crowds , the chaos, even if it means to come last in that race for life.) How many of us have felt that dejection at some poignant moment in our life’s journey? Satish Kaushik, is amazing He has reached world class stature with this performance.
How much improvisation do you allow in your plays, and how much are you affected by the audience?
Improvisation is part of our growth, even in rehearsals we treat it like a workshop where we constantly change for the better. It’s a live experience unlike films so we are growing all the time. Yet improvisation does not mean changing things completely. It’s like a painting on a canvas. There is space to improvise but you cannot go out of the canvas.
The audience response is much more important in a comedy. In a serious play you can’t figure out if they are suffering along with the characters, but if they don’t get the jokes or punch lines in a comedy then we are in trouble!!
You have brought your plays abroad, but with the exception of Mahatma vs. Gandhi, you have concentrated on reaching Indian rather than western audiences worldwide.
Well, the reason for that is simple. I feel and think like an Indian, and so my adaptations are for an Indian audience worldwide. If I tried to direct plays for the western audience then all I am doing is catering, and I don’t want to cater. Gandhi was something the western audience could understand. Zakir Hussein can create fusion music with John McLaughlin, but music transcends all barriers and in theater we are dealing with language, and that is a major roadblock.
How has theater evolved during the past two decades in India? Have you ever thought of television as a means of reaching a wider audience?
Well, things have certainly improved. We are doing many more plays and people are taking theater more seriously, but the advent of television has taken away most of the actors. Every media defines itself through certain values and television in India has defined itself through mediocrity. The TV approach is like an assembly line production… if it was only for making money then maybe I might fit in, but that is not what my goal is. At this point of time I want to do work that gives me a high.
When I did Mahatma vs. Gandhi, I was adamant that no cigarette or liquor companies would be allowed to sponsor the play. This meant I cut out a very major part of my sponsorship, and I did lose money. So there is this constant struggle between your value system and what may be the easier road. For Salesman Ramlal I paid from my pocket. If I could have had some financial backing I could’ve reach a much wider audience. In spite of being a big name, I hesitate to ask people to put in money in my plays. Usually its always close family and friends who chip in.
In the last few years I have managed to make a decent living. If I was a hard-core commercial guy I’d have switched to television. I know I am not going to be an amazingly rich man, but I cannot compromise on my principles. No matter how tough things are I only want to do work that inspires me. My goal and my search, should and will always be for excellence and not success.