Two Fathers take centre stage

The Two Fathers, an 80-minute long play staged at the Indian Habitat Centre on Sunday by Imaya group, enthralled a packed hall with its story of two legends, Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Einstein, who had great admiration for each other though their paths never crossed.

Born 10 years apart (the Mahatma was older than the Nobel laureate), the focus of the play, based on the works of Sundar Sarukhai, was on the uncanny similarities between the personal lives of the two great men born in different continents, into different cultures.

While we all know that Gandhi could never resolve his troubled relationship with his eldest son Harilal, what's not so well known in India is that Einstein would not even acknowledge his daughter, Liese.

The play, directed by Shrinivas Bhashyam who also played the role of Gandhi, placed the two men in their personal settings to both compare and understand them, adding a touch of chaotic domesticity to two chapters of history.

Shrinivas said that when he read Sarukhai's play on Einstein and his daughter, he found the concept very fascinating. "I had a discussion with him and told him that I want to stage the play provided there's something more Indian, in our context," Shrinivas said.

When Sarukhai wrote the concept for The Two Fathers, Shrinivas says, "I knew that every family will be able to relate with it." Complimenting the script as "beautifully-written" and "elegant", he said, "I just took away great sets, great music and made the stage bare minimum so that we could concentrate on the idea and the concept, the emotions and the words." The play had strokes of live piano music and some funny one-liners that drew laughter from the audience.

While Shrinivas says that playing Gandhi was not difficult physically, getting into his head remains a challenge. "The more I play him and the more I direct this play, the less I understand Gandhi," he said, speaking of the complex character that is Mahatma Gandhi.

All the actors in his play were first time actors apart from Varun Kainth, who played Einstein. Sheeba Shah portrayed Einstein's daughter and Valentino Dias played Harilal.

Like all theatre directors, Shrinivas, who was earlier an assistant director in films, speaks of the thrill and challenge of stage and live drama. "The fact that I cannot do a retake and the adrenalin rush… about goofing up on stage" is what keeps him going, he says.