A country goes bust

Director Quasar Thakore-Padamsee talks about how the play, ‘A Peasant of El Salvador’ shows the collapse of the Latin American country, the enduring charm of theatre and how audience reaction varies from place to place

Photos: Archbishop Oscar Romero; Quasar Thakore-Padamsee 

By Shevlin Sebastian 

A couple of weeks ago, Quasar Thakore-Padamsee was relaxing in the green room after a show in Delhi with the members of the QTP theatre company. They had just finished performing the play, ‘A Peasant Of El Salvador’. Suddenly, Quasar got a message. The Ambassador of El Salvador Ariel Andrade Galindo wanted to meet the group. Quasar felt a bit nervous. “Not all that we acted would be palatable for a person from El Salvador,” he says.

But Quasar’s fears proved unfounded. Ariel said what had been portrayed was the way it happened. “It was the El Salvador that he grew up in,” says Quasar. “He hung out with us for an hour and we gained a lot of insights. None of us has been to El Salvador yet.” 

This play, which was written by American authors Peter Gould and Stephen Stearns, was first staged by the QTP in 2013. And is still very popular. The audience at the JT Pac, Kochi on Sunday (September 22) were no different: they gave a standing ovation. 

The story is about a farmer Jesus who lived in a small village with his family. But the government, almost like a dictatorship, made a series of moves that resulted in the loss of his land and the deaths of his wife and a few of his children. All these roles have been played by three actors -- Meher Acharia-Dar, Pramod Pathak and Suhaas Ahuja. Amazingly, the trio plays Jesus at different stages. 

With a minimum of props, they told the story in a mesmerising way, using three languages, Hindi, English and Spanish, till it reached a resounding climax: the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero who was shot dead inside the chapel of the Hospital of Divine Providence in San Salvador on March 24, 1980.

What had angered the authorities was through the Catholic radio station YSAX, the Archbishop spoke about disappearances, tortures, murders and the government’s repression. Unfortunately, during the funeral ceremony, about 50 people were killed by sniper fire, allegedly by government agents. All these events led to a civil war (1979–1992), between the government and left-wing guerrilla groups which crippled the nation.

Quasar says that this story has parallels in India too. “So many thinkers and intellectuals have been assassinated -- rationalists like MM Kalburgi, Govind Pansare, Narendra Dabholkar and journalist Gauri Lankesh,” says Quasar. “There is government interference in schools and colleges. History is being re-written, to suit a particular ideology. And there is political use of the military -- Kashmir is a good example.” 

Meanwhile, there were two exceptional differences during the staging of this play. Before the start, the actors came down to where the audience was sitting and read out poems by revolutionary poet Roque Dalton Garcia, who was assassinated in 1975. And at the end of the show, there was an engaging one-hour interaction inside the hall between the actors and the director with the audience, which included more than 40 students and teachers from Pallikoodam in Kottayam. The subjects included how the play was selected, the importance of rehearsals, the present situation in El Salvador and what a career in the theatre entails. 

Quasar has been a theatre professional for over two decades now. And so far, QTP has performed more than 25 plays all over India. But he admits that audience reaction differs from place to place. “In Mumbai going for a play is one of five things you are doing,” says Quasar. “In Delhi, as soon as the show is over, the audience disappears. But we enjoy performing in South India because the people listens to what is being said. They are an intelligent crowd. And we get very good feedback.” 

As for the importance of theatre in these distracted times, Quasar says, “The theatre is one of the few places where we can look at another human being with curiosity and generosity. You can watch movies, Netflix and Amazon Prime, but there is no substitute to watching an actor standing on a stage and talking to you.” 

The actors love theatre too. And there is a reason for that. “When you act in a film, it is the camera which tells the story,” says Quasar. “But in theatre, the actor tells the story. The actor is at the centre of the play.”  

So, despite their busy schedules, the actors always try to make space for the theatre. “Pramod is in ‘Mirzapur’, the Netflix show,” says Quasar. “He was shooting all night at Mumbai, then took a morning flight and came straight to the hall. He will return immediately. Suhaas was shooting in Coimbatore for a web series but still wanted to perform. That’s how much they love the theatre.” 

Quasar pauses….

Then the son of theatre legends Alyque Padamsee and Dolly Thakore says, not surprisingly, “For me, too, theatre is like a drug.” 

(Published in The New Indian Express, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode)