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| Usha Ganguli rehearses Sarhad Paar: Beyond borders |
Fifty years ago on a cold January day, Saadat Hasan Manto died at age 42 in Lahore, after being hounded out of Bombay. But despite stiff opposition from the establishment, the Urdu writer had left behind a volume of hard-hitting short stories that are slowly finding their way on to the stage across the country.
Born in 1912 in Amritsar, Manto worked for All India Radio in Delhi before shifting to Bombay where he met with success penning scripts for Hindi films. But the bloody massacre that followed Partition left Manto frail and shattered. He longed for his family in Lahore, where he finally shifted and died of ill heath.
Some of Manto?s finest stories were written under the pain of Partition. As a tribute to Manto on his death anniversary, city-based Hindi troupe Rangakarmee is staging Sarhad Paar Manto under Usha Ganguli?s direction (picture above by Aranya Sen). The second of a three-part series on Manto hinges on two stories on Partition ? Khol Do and Toba Tek Singh. Both plays harp on the turmoil, torture and torment the cleavage of a land had brought in its wake.
If in the first a Muslim father loses his daughter to volunteers who rape and kill her, the other story has a Sikh lunatic believing that he is a village in no man?s land between the two nations.
Rangakarmee?s first production on the writer, Badnam Manto, had presented his Kali Shalwar and Hatak. Both focus on women?s exploitation with prostitution as the dominant theme.
In Mumbai, Awishkar theatre group has also tried to capture two strands of Manto?s writings ? women in red light areas and the grief of Partition ? in Sarhad Se Bazar Tak.
It?s been a rough couple of years for Broadway musical revivals, with a series of high-profile financial failures, including Gypsy, Man of La Mancha and Wonderful Town. What each of those shows had in common were stars like Bernadette Peters, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Donna Murphy, all of whom had respected theatrical r?sum?s but lacked lasting box-office punch. And so it is that the producers of a forthcoming revival of The Pajama Game have tapped a name that they hope has more mainstream appeal: Harry Connick Jr, the jazz star and actor.
Connick, 37, will play Sid in the 1954 musical comedy, which follows the epic labour struggles inside the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory, over a raise. The production, to be directed by Kathleen Marshall, who also directed Wonderful Town, is expected to go into rehearsals with an eye on a November opening on Broadway.
A musical prodigy who started performing in his native New Orleans as a child, Connick did a stint on Broadway with his orchestra in 1990 and returned as composer of the 2001 musical Thou Shalt Not. Between those two trips to Broadway, he established a decent acting reputation playing Southerners in movies like Memphis Belle and Independence Day.
Connick is the first member of the cast to be announced. A list of actresses is still being considered for Babe, Sid?s love interest. (Doris Day played Babe in the 1957 film version opposite John Raitt, who also originated the role of Sid on Broadway.)
The 2005 Pajama Game will not be an exact replica of the 1954 version; Peter Ackerman, a playwright and screenwriter, has rewritten the show?s book. The show was last revived on Broadway in 1973 with Hal Linden as Sid.
