Chat with the founding members of SETU Subrata Das and Jayanti Bandopadhyay

Transcribed by: Divya Mendiratta

Gauri :  Welcome to Foundations TV everyone. Our guests tonight are the founding members of SETU, which is a theater group. We have Subrata and we have Jayanti here today. We are very excited to hear about the upcoming show, Shah Jahan, which is going to be performed Sept 27^th through 29^th. This is an interview, and a way to get some information out there for everybody. Welcome to Foundations TV Jayanti. Tell us something about when SETU was founded, what the mission is and what is the idea behind creating something like that.

Jayanti:  First of all Gauri, thank you so much for doing this for SETU. SETU was founded by several theater enthusiasts back in 2003. And Subrata and I, of course are co – founders, we are still here. The full name of SETU is ‘Stage Ensemble Theater Unit’. However abbreviated name SETU also means, we are trying to bridge the cultural gaps between India, the Eastern part of the world and the Western part of the world. And this is why we only perform plays in English since that is part of our mission. The other mission is to give people who have never acted or never have been part of the production, whether it’s to do with lights or whatever, to give them an opportunity to be at SETU and get some training, so that’s very exciting. And there’s also a social message in every play. We do various Indian stories by famous play writes, or by people who can write scripts. I have also translated some. It gives a lot of chance for creativity, and there’s an educational message, hopefully, for some of our young players. You will see that when you will come and see our play.

Gauri:  Excellent. You know what I loved most about what you said, was that there’s a dual meaning to the word SETU. There’s the word itself in Hindi it means a bridge, which is so meaningful for what you doing and also the abbreviated form. Could you please share the expanded version of that abbreviation again.

Jayanti :  Sure. It’s Stage Ensemble Theater Unit. And it is an official Tax exempt organization. And we have performed before at Harvard University, we have performed at Endicott College and of course, at various venues around Boston Area. And now we are going to be performing at historical town of Belmont theater.

Gauri :  Very nice. One more question before you handover the mic to Subrata. You talked about being cross cultural, so do you have actors and actresses who are non-Indians as well, even though the theme is very Indian?

Jayanti:  Yes absolutely, we’ve had several American actors and actresses, and hopefully we’ll have more as we do future plays. We also have one of the youngest actors this time, his name is Yusuf, and he is doing Sipar. So the young people should be encouraged.

Gauri :  Very Nice. The beauty of Indian traditions and Indian culture is being spread through this group into various organizations and various cultures, as well as various generations. That’s really nice. I have actually been witness to such a fantastic performance of Mahabharat.I was completely mesmerized. That was something I cannot forget for the rest of my life. It was such a beautifully projected theatrical drama. And now it is Shah Jahan. I’m really personally looking forward to Shah Jahan. What I want to hear from you Subrata is how did you come up with this idea of doing Shah Jahan?

Subrata: Actually, I grew up in a village and I used to watch, what you call, yatra in villages. I saw several versions of Shah Jahan. From there, I got the ideas that when I probably do my plays in future,  I will probably pick up on that piece. And then this opportunity came up. Last year we did Mahabharat, as you said. And this year I picked up this play. The original one was written by famous play writer D.L. Roy and it was published in 1909, so it is a pretty old play. When I picked up the play as I said, the language itself was really very formal Bengali language, so I wasn’t quite sure I would be able to translate it.

Gauri : Its quite talent, very nice.

Subrata : But then I translated and started casting. It’s a large cast. We have about 35 people including dancers. We have 21 actors and 14 dancers.

Gauri :  Wow. That’s impressive. So have you added more to the script?

Subrata :  Yes, I did, actually its good thing that you asked. As an example, in the script there’s no role of Mumtaz. This script starts sometime in 1657. And Mumtaz was dead by then, and Shah Jahan is at his late age so he couldn’t control his whole empire.So he started losing battles. Three of his four sons were aiming to grab the empire. That’s when the play starts. You will see the down fall and the treachery of Aurangzeb, and his political shrewdness in the play.

Gauri:  Alright. Most of us know Shah Jahan as a romantic person who built the beautiful Taj Mahal for his wife, as a symbol of love. And of course, there’s this aspect of it of his life, because what you’re sharing right now is a completely different side of his life and different phase of his life. You have tried to bring in a little bit of romance and little bit of beauty into this script.

Subrata :  Yes, I added a scene. In fact, it is in one of the scenes in which Shah Jahan is dreaming. And in that dream Mumtaz comes back and they have some conversations.

Gauri:  What a lovely way to show that!

Subarta :  And Shah Jahan will be played by Anurag and Mumtaz will be played by Paramita. And then obviously we have a large cast.

Gauri : Talking of cast, how does it all work out for you? I know you have actors you’ve worked with before and then you have newer actors. So how do you make the decisions of who is going to play what role? Do you have auditions, or do you just kind of go with your gut feeling? How does it all work out?

Subrata:  It’s a very good point you made. As Jayanti mentioned that we provide opportunity to new comers, so we don’t always look for talent in acting. You may not have acted before but we can still take you if you are passionate about performing arts. This time we have introduced about 8 new actors.

Gauri:  Wow, that’s quite a challenge for you, I’m sure, as a director too.

Subrata :  Well yes. We have number of existing players from Mahabharat, and we have added 8-9 I think new players.

Gauri:  So how do train new actors? What are the specific things you do for somebody who is doing for the first time?

Subrata :  Although I’m the director, it’s a team effort, because Jayanti helps me and then obviously several other senior actors also help. But I think my approach to directing is to give them lot of freedom. In the sense that let them develop their character first. Then, I give certain constraints, because I have the overall vision. So I let them develop the character, I let them study. And it’s a very educational process. We learn about history. And we have very dynamic group. There will be several emails about history, and facts we share. So, we understand the characters, and in this way we analysis the characters as well. And then obviously when they come and they rehearse I show them various techniques. They get very good training, especially the new comers. They are exposed to various acting techniques, how you project mannerism, how you project a voice, how you gesture in different circumstances, how you move on stage, and all of these together. But I give them a lot of freedom, I hear from them first and see if that is within the constraint that I have set up because I have the overall vision.

Gauri :  Yes absolutely, I have seen you in action and I am honestly a big fan of your direction process. You do give people the freedom to own the character and to learn their own way, and just kind of give their best to the role. And then you tweak here and there. But you do it in a very sophisticated manner. I have read emails and I have seen the way you guide them and it’s not overwhelming or intimidating. It’s a very subtle way of telling and working with them while they don’t their lose their individual characteristics or their skill as an actor, it’s just fine tuned as we go along. So this is really nice. Jayanti, I would love to hear your role in the direction process.

Jayanti :  Just one more thing about direction and then team collaboration, especially for the newest actors and actress. Subrata is very good at letting the team collaborate among themselves. I do some rehearsals with them. I help them with voice modulations as much as I can. It really is a fun.

Gauri :  I could see that, director interaction with the actors and the whole team’s interaction with each other, there’s such beautiful chemistry. And I think that happens because the directing team and the founders, the both of you, have given that flexibility and that freedom to the team to be themselves on screen and off screen, on stage and off stage. It’s very visible. And I think not only off stage but on stage that chemistry really projects itself as a performance as they are comfortable with each other on stage.  I’m really looking forward to this fantastic show. Thank you so much both of you for being here today.  I’d really like to encourage everybody who is watching this video to come and watch the show Sept 27^th through 29^th . There are three different shows so you can come and join for any one of them. And could you please tell our audience where they can get the tickets

Jayanti :  There’s a website, that you can buy ticket from.

Subrata :  You can find details at our website which www.setu.us.

Gauri:   Ok, and there’s also a Facebook event so they can go there and that has details as well. So if you are on Facebook you can certainly go ahead and find that. We have that information on the Foundations TV page as well. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you.

For details to the event, please visit www.setu.us
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