Alyque Padamsee tells shoma a chatterji how much he didn’t realise he missed acting till he got back on stage

THE Brandfather of Indian Advertising and one of the greatest personalities of the Indian stage, Alyque Padamsee was recently in Kolkata to perform and direct two shows of Arthur Miller&’s Death of a Salesman. Returning to face a theatre audience after a gap of four decades since he withdrew into direction, he&’s made a magic comeback as an actor, bringing to life the legendary Willy Lowman, whose name has evolved into an adjective for men who never stop dreaming, never mind how “ordinary” they might feel and the price they must pay for their dreams. In a wonderful one-to-one, Alyque unfolds the multiple layers of a fine, grounded human being that resides within the communications magician, the director and the actor. Excerpts:

M What made you return to acting after such a long time?
My daughter Raell pushed me back to where I belong. She&’s the producer of the play and she was very insistent that I play Willy Lowman. Death of A Salesman has already gone through 20 houseful shows in Mumbai. I did not realise how much I missed acting before I came on stage again. It gives me a greater high than LSD does an addict. The 1,200 pairs of eyes concentrating on you is a feeling that acting in films can never give you. The chemistry between two groups of living, acting, reacting human beings on both sides of the footlights is magic. It is the audience that gives you the power to perform slightly differently in the next performance. The lines remain the same, the character is also the same, but there is this slight shift here and there, maybe a facial tic you are not even aware of, that the audience unwittingly instills in you.

M But Willy Lowman is considered by many as a defeatist, a failure. Why choose to play him over other characters?
To me, Willy Lowman is a very positive character because he makes the greatest sacrifice to ensure a bright future for his older son, Biff. He sacrifices God&’s greatest gift, his life, so that Biff can collect the $20,000 of the insurance money. Lowman commits suicide for a very noble cause — for his son&’s success, which places his act in a positive light and marks him as a successful man. Death comes as a very different catharsis in this play. I do not think other performances of this play have given this positive interpretation to Willy Lowman.

M You keep saying, “You do not play the character, the character plays you.” Would you elaborate?
It was Marlon Brando who said, “I do not play the role, the role plays me. I do not know what I am doing once I am into the character.” This becomes a dynamic interaction when it is an ongoing “conversation” between the actor and his audience. In cinema, your performance is frozen forever in time and space and you have no clue about how your audience is reacting to your performance. So when you are doing the same thing the next day, it is not really the same thing you did today because the audience has somehow inspired those changes. (At this point, he asks me to stop taking notes and performs a small abstract of Shylock from Shakespeare&’s The Merchant of Venice; just like that “becoming” Shylock for those few minutes.)

M Among the plays you have directed down the years, which do you hold closest to your heart?
Evita – The Musical, Jesus Christ Superstar and my latest play, Broken Images, which has had over 100 houseful shows in 16 cities in the USA. I am also very proud of the talents I discovered through my career in advertising and I think my travels and my experience have vested me with the ability to spot talent. I spotted it in Shyam Benegal when he was working in advertising under Gerson Da Cunha, in Kabir Bedi, whom I picked to play Tughlaq, in Shiamak Davar, Javed Jaffrey, Alisha Chinoy, Suneeta Rao, Karla Singh, Dalip Tahil and many more.

M How has theatre changed for you today?
I use a lot of magic realism and Raell has introduced new light effects. There is a wide screen in the backdrop to establish certain things. Innovation in light effects helps produce magic on stage. In Broken Images, based on a Girish Karnad play, Shabana Azmi is the central character who interacts with her own image shown on video. In the end, the audience actually sees the real Shabana on stage break down into fragments of herself as if she is made of glass. The use of the screen in the backdrop functions sometimes to establish time-space factors, sometimes as a metaphor and sometimes is not there at all. Magic transfers the audience to a different realm in their minds and hearts.