Mohan Kapoor and Tarun Singh Negi in The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho’s best-selling novel The Alchemist has debuted on the Mumbai stage. Playwright-director Mahesh Dattani tells t2 how he has shaped Deepa Gahlot’s adaptation of Spanish shepherd Santiago’s journey...

What interested you in The Alchemist?

I had reservations about doing The Alchemist when Ashvin Gidwani (producer) approached me. I couldn’t see myself doing it on stage to capture an audience the way the book has managed to do. I’ve done fables with subtle nuances before but nothing like this. The story appears simple but resonates with all these philosophies. I thought over it and decided to take it up as a challenge.

What was your biggest challenge?

One of the biggest challenges was depicting the geographic journey without being literal. The Alchemist is not about high drama between the characters; it’s about how they travel and gather wisdom. It was a design and performance challenge. No matter what you do on stage you’re restricted by the artificial construct of the stage. You’re constantly reminded that it doesn’t give you an illusion of reality. You have to trust the imagination of the audience for it to work. I didn’t want realistic or static sets. We had several meetings and sketches till we zeroed in on the designs. We’ve used sheer curtains painted very interestingly, not realistic scenery but abstract in morbid colours.

Did Gahlot’s adaptation go with how you had visualised the play?

For me the design had to be right to match my vision. The lights, costumes, music — everything had to come together. I didn’t want to take the play away from its cultural roots — Santiago’s journey through the deserts, pyramids and African bazaars. They’re very integral to the telling of the story. Ashvin gave me 100 per cent creative freedom. Kaizad Gherda has done the music and sound. It has a very Andrew Webber quality and captures the right emotions. It took six months to bring all the elements together.

Tom Alter was to play the alchemist. Why was he replaced by Mohan Kapoor?

Tom Alter is a wonderful actor but he was under a different director who was meant to direct the play at first. I saw Mohan Kapoor as the alchemist. He had the swarthy look and swashbuckling quality in him. That was exactly what I had visualised about this man of the desert who has lived for more than 300 years. These are artistic decisions that one needs to make and Tom in my opinion didn’t fit the bill.

What about the other characters?

All the roles came in through auditions. Santiago is being played by Tarun Singh Negi. He’s sensitive enough to invest the character with a kind of innocence that wouldn’t ring false. Fatima, his love interest, is being played by Shilpi Arora, who has this centred quality about her. The rest are all stage actors. Shilpi and Tarun are trained actors but The Alchemist marks their debut in professional theatre.... As Santiago comes across many characters in the course of his journey, I had to give them different colours. Each had to have a clear-cut purpose and a point of view, and a lot of that came in through improvisations during rehearsals. Actors also had to go through martial arts training for the war scenes.

Are you directing the Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi versions of the play?

The idea of doing it in different Indian languages can be interesting but it can’t just be a literal translation. Unless I’m convinced about a script, I wouldn’t venture into it.