Shakespeare’s love story, Romeo and Juliet will be staged at
the Access Theater in Tribeca,
New York on February 6 and runs through February 22. Produced by the
Hypokrit Theatre Company, founded by Arpita Mukherjee and Shubhra Prakash, two
award winning theatre professionals, the drama is set in New Delhi, but the characters speak Shakespearean
dialogues.
This is the first time Shakespeare’s verse is being
interspersed with Bollywood music and dance, the producers claimed. It is also
noted for two casts performing Romeo and Juliet in repertory. Eamonn Farrell,
pioneer in projection design and Professor of Media Design at Princeton,
creates groundbreaking projections to capture the Bollywood aesthetic in an
intimate 50-seat black box theatre.
At the Kick Off Party, director Arpita Mukherjee shared her
vision behind the production: ‘Our Romeo and Juliet is going to be visually
stunning and so viscerally engaging that audiences won’t really have time to
think about whether they ‘understand’ Shakespeare or Bollywood. The world we
are creating, you won’t be able to keep yourself from being completely immersed
in it, and just follow the emotional arc of the story. But it isn’t fluff
(because it’s Bollywood).
‘We’re exploring some serious issues in the play: the
treatment of women, meaningless violence in the urban landscape and the way
power and greed serve as motivators for ‘progress’ and what that means for a
city’s story. Of course, we’re talking about this in the context of New Delhi, but the tropes
have universal resonance. Though Hypokrit is a new company, this does not
diminish the quality of their productions. Romeo and Juliet is the result of
several months of sweat equity, and a commitment to professionalism and
creative marketing.’
According to cofounder Shubhra Prakash, "What we can't
do without big budgets, we can do with a big imagination. Experimental theatre,
race-blind casting, and diverse voices don't have to mean low-cost and/or low-quality
theatre." Entertainment and culture are an important part of our community
as it is in India.
"This production truly has merit," says Roger Sen
Gupta, founder of USIN Celebrations and Executive Producer of Romeo and Juliet,
"It weaves the mosaic and tapestry of the multicultural cast from the
financial and multi-cultural capital of the world." Hypokrit not only
embraces a transnational cultural landscape, it is also a business.
As the director of Romeo and Juliet, Hypokrit cofounder
Arpita Mukherjee facilitated the training of actors in the rasa methodology, an
India
performance aesthetic that is designed to elicit an emotional response from the
audience. Mukherjee explains, "The rasa theory allows an actor to free
himself or herself up while keeping the actor's process intact. When people see
the play, they will very clearly see the relationships and all that comes from
the rasa workshops we did for key scenes. Initially the actors were not
entirely comfortable with it but once they started doing it, it became a
different way to access the scene and a new tool in their acting process."
While rasa is not a new methodology, it has never before been adapted for
Shakespeare in this way, and provided the cast with a cultural education along
with their training. This blending of culture, in the interest of advocating
for the embrace of diversity using the arts, is a shared mission between
Hypokrit and USIN Celebrations, making this a historic collaboration that must
not be missed.
Founded by two award winning South Asian theatre
professionals, Arpita Mukherjee and Shubhra Prakash, the company strives
towards, in their words, "Making multicultural mainstream." This
blending of culture, in the interest of advocating for the embrace of diversity
using the arts, is a shared mission between Hypokrit and USIN Celebrations,
making this a historic collaboration that must not be missed.
Hypokrit Theatre Company is a new, multicultural theatre
company that adapts classics from around the world for the contemporary
audience and aims to encourage diverse voices in the arts by exploring what
makes a story resonate with universal audiences, through the ages and across
borders.
Hypokrit Theatre Company’s Kick Off Party, Executive
Producer, founder of USIN Celebrations, and Global Chairman of Park Place
Group, Inc., Roger Sen Gupta, presented Hypokrit cofounders Arpita Mukherjee
and Shubhra Prakash with a certificate of special recognition on behalf of
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.
photo: Hypokrit diversity
