What will it take for musical theatre to find firm footing in India?

We talk about the legacy of musical theatre in India, as well as the possibilities and challenges of replicating the Broadway performance style

Mumbai is currently going through a cultural Renaissance of sorts. The Maximum City has not only played host to an international fashion show, but also has given its residents a taste of an immersive art show (Van Gogh 360°™), a fashion exhibition chronicling India’s contribution to global fashion, and, well, a Backstreet Boys concert (nostalgia seems to be the new cultural currency). May 3 also marked the debut of international Broadway in India, with the Broadway International Group’s version of The Sound of Music (which will run till June 4). This five-time Tony Award-winning show portrays the triumph of the human spirit through music, romance, and happiness over conflict. 

The opening day witnessed a cross-section of theatre lovers, social media chroniclers, and a new generation of children introduced to the Von Trapp family. Held at The Grand Theatre at the newly-minted Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), the two-hour 45-minute-long show was everything you’d expect from a Broadway performance: larger-than-life sets that transitioned seamlessly from the outdoors to an abbey and an Austrian mansion, actors faithful to the characters that we all grew to love in the film version, in 1965, and soaring vocals that brought to life the emotions that so many generations have grown to love. 

This is a tour of notable quality. There’s enough traditionalism to deliver the full ‘Sound of Music’ monty but also enough fresh eyes and irreverence to make it relevant for an audience in 2023. We wouldn’t call it a revisionist production—designer Douglas W. Schmidt provides traditional Alpine vistas like the ones that once hung over our parents’ dining-room table—but they’re more artful than you realise, beautifully connected to the show’s emotional core.

There is a lot of fresh, fast-paced humour too, whether it’s Jill-Christine Wiley’s Maria lurking in the background of Sixteen Going on Seventeen, taking notes; an especially ebullient staging of Do-Re-Mi; the very approachable Mother Abbess; or Brigitta, the kinder Von Trapp, assuming the moral authority the show affords her and quietly running the lives of the adults.

Jack O’Brien has directed this production with warmth and wonder, infusing it with newness. It has spectacle, beauty, realistic characterisations, and beautiful music. His production will impress audiences with its abundance of talent and a welcome intimacy, despite the majesty of its size and scope, making it an excellent first musical experience for young audiences. 

In the words of Nita Mukesh Ambani, “I have always believed art spreads hope and happiness. The Sound of Music is a joyful and timeless classic.”

Possibility of an Indian Broadway?

Broadway in New York, and by extension, the West End in London, have come to represent Western civilisation’s cultural erudition. They represent decades of progress in acting, music, dance, lighting, scripting, and showmanship. To refer to them as ‘plays’ would not do them justice because they represent more than just theatrics; they are a form of performance art. They bring together the most talented entertainers from various disciplines to create an experience that transcends the limitations of the human form and approaches the realm of the ethereal.

But how would performances of its scale and calibre fare in India? Would Broadway plays be successful here? More importantly, would our country ever be able to host, house, and eventually create, performances of such impeccable calibre and with such demanding production value? 

The 2004 Broadway show Bombay Dreams changed the face of Broadway, albeit for a season. It was supposed to open doors for South Asian musicals by holding the distinction of being the first South Asian musical to make its way to New York. There was a lot riding on its expected success. Produced by Broadway veteran Andrew Lloyd Webber, written by Meera Syal (of Goodness Gracious Me fame), choreographed by Farah Khan and Anthony Van Laast and, of course, composed by A.R. Rahman, the musical centered on a young man with dreams of becoming a Bollywood star. While it fared decently on the West End, thanks in part to the United Kingdom’s South Asian population, the chances of it doing well on Broadway was up for speculation. 

While Bombay Dreams opened to mixed reviews, it regained its investment of $7.6 million (two-thirds of which came from Webber) within 15 months on the West End. But it closed its doors in New York after a short eight-month run. It took another two decades before another South Asian musical went to Broadway. With Life of Pi, Come Fall in Love – The DDLJ Musical, produced by Yash Raj Films,and Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding aiming for New York in 2023, it seems like a significant moment in Broadway history. 

Despite the popularity of South Asian musicals globally, one cannot discount how most of these productions seem to cater to the ‘white gaze,’ sitting perfectly as tales that Westerners lap up, given their rather myopic understanding of India’s cultural fabric. 

Back home, there have been attempts at replicating the success of these musicals with larger-than-life productions of Mughal-e-Azam: The Musical, which will debut its 13-city North American tour in Atlanta between May 26 and 28 at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. The theatre production, presented by Cinema on Stage, is based on K Asif’s 1960 classic film of the same name, showcasing the country’s rich culture of Kathak dances and classical music intertwined with a legendary love story. India’s first Broadway-style musical boasts a cast and crew of more than 150 people and has been met with accolades following its 2016 premiere in Mumbai. 

More recently, with The Great Indian Musical: Civilization to Nation, the musical theatre genre has been revived in a way. Why did the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre need to tell India’s story through the musical medium? A spokesperson for the Centre says, “The Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre envisioned to showcase the age-old treasures of the Indian culture to the younger generation of audiences, as well as the rest of the world. Under this driving philosophy, the theme for the opening musical and that of the rest of the opening shows was imagined to highlight India’s impact on art and culture across the ages. The idea was also to represent the rich heterogeneity of Indian art forms, be it performing or visual arts, and to rally a host of incredible homegrown talent for the purpose—of creating space for the growth of artistic and ancillary industries and resources.”

Holding out hope

Bollywood and regional cinema across India have produced exceptional composers, musicians, writers, and actors. Indian films are renowned internationally for their upbeat music, beautifully choreographed dances, stunning sets, and extravagant costumes, indicating that we have the artistic skills required to plan and execute large-scale productions as a nation. What’s more important is that such films have a wide audience appeal and a proud filmmaking legacy that spans generations. In many ways, Broadway shows are structured similarly to mainstream Bollywood films, implying that India already has a 100-year history to fall back on.

Theatre actor Vivaan Parashar, who has been part of many productions in Mumbai, including an Urdu musical called Rustom-O-Sohrab, an ode to Parsi Theatre, which he says has heavily inspired the Bollywood song-and-dance formula. “Their [Parsi theatre] plays have always been rich in social, moral, and political perspectives. The most appealing and distinctive aspect is its performance style, which includes poetic dialogues, rhythm, taal, postures, gestures, and expressions.”

In 1853, the Parsi Dramatic Corp staged a play named Rustam Zabuli and Zohrab at the Grant Road Theatre in Bombay. It was an adaptation of the 10th-century Persian epic Shahnameh, a tragic story of the hero Rustam and his son, Sohrab, by the Persian poet Ferdowsi. This marked the beginning of Parsi theatre in the city, which had a great impact on entertainment later, including the Hindi film industry. The staging of this play occurred nearly 70 years after the first theatre had appeared in the city. 

The Parsi theatre became known for its powerful performances. It was boosted further by the fact that the Parsi owners would lavishly spend money on stage settings. They adopted European theatre traditions like the proscenium arch with its backdrop and curtains, Western musical instruments, and Western devices and props. They hired European artists to paint the scenery, bought stage equipment from England, and advertised ‘Transformation Scenes’ or ‘Dissolving Views’ in English-style playbills. During the performances, audience members were handed an ‘opera book’ containing the song lyrics. Some of the actors were even sent to England to learn the different acting styles. They also adopted the English practice of staging small farces after the main play. The Parsi theatre is credited with introducing women to the theatre. Gohar was the first female actress to appear on stage. Mary Fenton, the daughter of an English army officer, rose to prominence as a Parsi heroine in a number of plays. Munnibai, another actress, excelled in domestic tragedies.

The intangibles of the Parsi theatre, however, had the greatest impact on the Indian film industry. These stylistic elements included declamatory theatrical performances, narrative progression through song-and-dance sequences, melodrama, disguise, and plot reversals. The reliance on music and dance that characterises Bollywood films even today has its roots in Parsi theatre. 

“Pulling off a musical theatre production in India is difficult because of the costs involved. It also requires state-of-the-art infrastructure like lighting, sound equipment, proper acoustics, massive seating arrangements, and elaborate sets. Playwrights must also have a sense of musicality to write original musical theatre. It’s not as easy as putting together dialogues and acting. The music needs to tell the story organically. If it comes off as contrived, the audience is bound to disconnect,” says Parashar.

Building a legacy

New Delhi-based musical theatre artist and art educator Namrata Juneja has been pushing for an acting-first approach to strengthen performance skills for singers in India. After obtaining a Musical Theatre degree from the Goldsmiths’ College program at LASALLE College of the Arts in 2021, she returned to India in the hopes of giving students interested in the genre the opportunities to hone their skills, something, she says “was sorely lacking when I was around.” She believes it is important to start raising awareness about musical theatre first before producing shows for an Indian audience.

“We as a society have a half-baked idea of what musical theatre is, and  that makes sense because culturally, we haven’t been exposed to it,” says Juneja , adding that putting together a musical comes with its fair share of challenges. “One has to go through months and months of rigorous practice. I have seen other smaller musical productions where people lip-sync to pre-recorded tracks, and I don’t understand why, especially if you’re not dancing or singing while acting. It’s not a live theatre show with music. It is a show where you perform everything live, where the dance sequences move the story along. There’s a reason for the song. There’s a reason for the dance. It’s contributing to the story in some way. None of it is placed there arbitrarily. For all these moving parts to come together, it’s important to build a strong foundation, which is sadly lacking in the country,” says Juneja. 

She adds that keeping a musical running for weeks or months on end requires financiers with deep pockets, who are unafraid to incur losses because it takes a while for musical plays to break even. “A huge audience turnout is necessary to keep a musical live. Is that a possibility in India? Maybe not,” she says. 

Juneja informs us that one of the only authentic theatre programmes in the country is helmed by Camille Vandeweghe Sahay—a trained Broadway artist and ballerina—and Ashwin Sahay in Jamshedpur. Camille, especially, has been training young kids in the Steel City to fine-tune their vocals and dance skills. “I also teach ballet to the kids. Seeing so many of them excited to participate in musical theatre is encouraging. Because they’re so impressionable, it’s important to help them build a solid foundation. Before performing, it takes months and months of practice. And while some of my students enjoy the genre, they know it’s not going to lead them to a career in musical theatre in the country because that culture doesn’t exist. A handful of them are preparing to pursue musical theatre abroad,” says Camille. 

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