‘Theatre is home; keeps me alive, grounded as an actor’: Ira Dubey

From theatre to advertisements and films — you have experimented with a lot of mediums; how would you describe your journey?

Exciting, challenging, always a learning, and always a desire to push myself to try something new!

However, over the last many years, while you have stayed away from the big screen, you’ve remained close to the stage in some capacity. What about theatre keeps you bringing back to it? What do you find most challenging and fascinating about it?

Theatre is home and what keeps me alive, and grounded as an actor! It will always be my first love as I’ve been doing it since I was 3 or 4 years old. It’s like cycling, or learning a language or an instrument that young. It never leaves you completely. Theatre, for me, is an actor’s medium and while cinema — if you get the right parts and are fortunate enough to work with great writers and directors — can be fulfilling in a very different way, once you’re on stage it’s you, the text and the audience. The journey is completely new for those two hours and cannot happen again.

 

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What about the play interested you in producing it? In ways is it different from your previous productions?

It’s an all-woman piece coming straight from Paris. When Koël reached out to me two months ago and I read the script, I felt like this was the right time for an Indian audience to watch a play like this – it’s funny, it’s irreverent, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s universal. At a time where motherhood, parenting and the roles of women are both stuck in a forgotten time where tradition still puts enormous pressure on a woman and the roles she plays, and a time where she is challenging those roles, young women today will relate to the play a lot! Working with Koël and her troupe has been delightful, she’s a tour de force and the actors wonderful. Encouraging more work from the West to come to India has also always been something I feel shouldn’t be as difficult as it’s made to seem. A cultural exchange in theatre is not a distant thing from the past anymore and shouldn’t be, and I don’t just mean the big Broadway stuff.

In all these years, how and in what ways, according to you, has theatre in India evolved? How would you describe this evolution?

From adaptations of Western plays and a clear tradition of regional theatre and Hindi theatre, which was more classic and yet very vibrant and alive, English theatre has really evolved. There is more original writing, there is multi-disciplinary approaches to theatre, a mixing of forms, and a fresher perspective that reflects the modern Indian — stand up comedy, diverse script forms like a series of monologues, one-person shows, and a burgeoning of theatre venues has also helped diversify the theatre scene.

A scene from Mummy’s Dead, Long Live Mummy! (Photo: PR handout)

You come from a family of artistes — did it ease things for you; or put you under immense pressure and scrutiny to always perform better?

Always a bit of both! Both those things push you to be better and take it on the chin, from within and without, and I would not have had it any other way.

What is the best lesson you’ve learnt from your mother, Lillete Dubey?

Stay positive, find solutions not problems, remain passionate and committed to what you do, look at life with lightness and joy and follow your heart.

 

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You’ve also worked with her; would you call her a hard taskmaster or someone who is extremely easy to work with?

Definitely more of the former!

Being an actor today, however, can put one under a lot of stress — both, physical and mental. As such, how do you ensure your well-being?

I’ve been doing yoga for 20 years, it’s a part of me now. I have also started to meditate; while I would like to sit longer, even 15 minutes a day is powerful. I’ve always loved chanting mantras too, find my own concoction! Travel and the ocean also give me a lot of peace and invigorate me.

 

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As an actor, what does it take to not get typecast yet be admired for what you do?

Do what makes you happy, find work that challenges and fulfils you, keep your craft alive constantly, learn about yourself and the world and the way it works and everything else will follow

The play features an all-women cast, which is still a rarity. How was the experience, and what changes is it reflective of? What is the main idea behind the play?

The experience has been fabulous – women who lift each other up are truly the finest, here is to many more. With a universal subject like this told in a crazy fun way what’s not to love! We hope audiences feel the same. It’s incredible to watch Koël tread that funny little thing called a work-life balance with ease, chutzpah and grace, most recently being a mother. When she told me she’d written a play about the craziness of parenting and it was an all-women piece, I was instantly hooked. I am an aunt to five-year-old twins and everyone around me has young children – motherhood seems to me a great milestone in a woman’s life that is revered, dismissed, misunderstood yet omnipresent – women question their worth, relevance, lives, priorities, careers, husbands and even their kids. Especially here in India where we still conform to such traditional ideas about women even as we appear to challenge and break them, it’s an interesting time. I thought it would be wonderful to have this fantastic original troupe bring this diverse cast and brilliantly written piece to Indian audiences not just for its global flavour but to highlight the universality of the human experience, of womanhood and sisterhood across the world.

The show will be performed in Delhi on September 27, 28th, and 29 followed by shows in Bengaluru on October 1, and finally in Mumbai on October 2 and 4.

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