In an exclusive interview, MyBindi.com’s Ashna Singh goes behind the scenes of The Post Office through the lens of John Van Burek.

Q. This is the first professional Canadian production of this play. What challenges, if any, are involved in such a production?

A. For starters, Indian theatre is very different from western theatre. Indian theatre traditionally does not rely on a taut narrative with rapidly building dramatic tension, arriving at a cathartic climax. Dramatic writing from Kalidasa to Bollywood movies will bear this out. In India, the longer it takes to let the story play out, the better! Here, everyone wants to get home to watch the news and go to bed. (They’ll be okay with The Post Office though because it’s only an hour long!) So presenting an Indian play to a general Canadian audience, which is made up of people from all over the world, is in itself a challenge. In addition to this, Tagore’s work is practically unknown to contemporary audiences, except of course for South Asians, so there is no strong recognition factor when it comes to marketing the play. Furthermore, one of the great beauties of Tagore’s writing is that he is unlike any other writer in the world so even once an audience is in the theatre, the reference points for his play are not familiar. All this means is that we have a triple whammy of a challenge!

Q. When did you get involved with this production?

A. I first encountered Tagore when I was working in Bangladesh on a theatre exchange project. But I only got to know this play when my producing partner at Pleiades brought it to me from Stratford, where he had commissioned a new, Canadian translation of a few years ago. We had successfully produced Shakuntala here in 2009 and wanted to continue to build our relationship with the Indian and South Asian communities and to bring theatre from that part of the world to mainstream Canadian audiences. I met with Julie Mehta, the translator, and we further developed her fine work on the play and now, here we are, about to go into rehearsal for its Canadian premiere production!

Q.  How do you plan to engage the audience’s emotions?

A. The Post Office, or Dak Ghar in Bengali, is one of the most beautifully moving plays I know; audiences all over the world have been profoundly affected by this little jewel of a story ever since it was written in 1911. For me, the challenge is not so much if we can engage the audience’s emotions but rather how best to channel and direct this engagement. It is a story about a child who is gravely ill and its real power lies in the fact that it is not a downer; rather it is a supremely up-lifting and inspiring play that should leave an audience feeling lighter.

Q.  How are you going to stage the performance?

A.  As simply and as elegantly as possible because Tagore wrote an incredibly poetic and uncluttered play. In its movement, it goes from the down-to-earth reality of daily life in a small Indian town to the gloriously immaterial life of spiritual eternity. That is all very nice but actors are made of flesh and blood and the stage is built with lumber and steel; suggesting the opposite is the magic of theatre.

Q. How will you reinforce the cultural accuracy and integrity of the play (by maintaining the traditions of Indian theatre)?

A.  Tagore drew on the traditional mix of drama, dance and music that has existed for thousands of years in India, but for his plays, as with his poetry, he created his own style and language. His dialogue, at least in this play, is seemingly realistic but it often lifts off into beautifully poetic prose; his dance is not based on anything recognizable from the various classical Indian schools of dance and his music was very much his own invention. In other words, Tagore in his time was resolutely modern and on that basis, we will try to capture the spirit of this by being modern in our own way. Interestingly enough, Tagore was, albeit unintentionally, a brilliant role model for Canada today. He was a fervent internationalist, opposed to sectarianism and nationalistic selfishness, yet he had an abiding belief in the need to defend and promote his own Indian and Bengali culture in the face of outside or colonial domination. Therefore, even as we strive to maintain the cultural integrity of the play, we also want to signal, as he would, that this story belongs to the world.

Q. The Post Office is obviously deeply connected to the South Asian heritage and roots. What parts of the play do you think will appeal to South Asian audience members?

A. Our hope is that South Asian audiences will feel immense pride at seeing this magical play, which has for so long been relegated to the small and sticking drawer of “Indian theatre,” and be given its place in the sun as a wonderful example of world theatre. We are all so conditioned into thinking that Sophocles, Shakespeare and Neil Simon belong to everyone in any language but that someone like Tagore can only exist in a specific place. We hope to change that perception. While South Asians will recognize characters such as the Headman, the Flower Girl and the Fakir, we think they will also be proud to see actors from all over the world, including of course India, performing these parts.  

Q. You are renowned for sharing stories of world cultures through theatre. What, in particular, interests you about world theatre and/or South Asian theatre?

A.  South Asian theatre is part of world theatre and the opposite is equally true. I have been fortunate in my life to work in different languages, to travel to different cultures and to watch theatre be played out in many different ways. Here in Toronto, the South Asian population is one of the most significant in the city and I think it’s unfortunate that we know so little of what such a rich culture as India’s has given to the world. This could apply to all manner of countries and cultures but it seems, especially in this year of Tagore’s sesquicentenary, especially important to celebrate one of the greatest poets, playwrights and humanitarians of the world.

Q.  What is the lasting impression you want to leave on the audience?

Celebrate the 150th anniversary of Tagore’s birth and The Year of India in Canada by experiencing The Post Office on May 7th to June 4th, 2011 at Pleaides Theatre in Toronto.  

Choreography by Hari Krishnan; Set by Teresa Przybylski; Costumes by Milan Shahani; Music by Debashis Sinha; Lighting by Robert Thomson.

Click HERE for more information or visit pleiadestheatre.org.

MyBindi.com is a proud sponsor of this production.