Still from Mughal-e-Azam the musical directed by Feroz Abbas Khan
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
The biggest challenge in performing arts is to reimagine a classic without alienating any section of the audience or actors that drive the story. By freeing the spirit of Anarkali from the iron grip of K Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam, director Feroz Abbas Khan has achieved the impossible. As India’s first Broadway-style musical returns to Delhi this Valentine’s week to complete a triple century, Khan says he didn’t fall for the “corporate cliches of monetising a film” but sought to “bring the tale back to the stage it belonged with a modern sensibility.
“For me, Mughal-e-Azam’s genesis is in theatre,” avers the master storyteller.
Inspired by Imtiaz Ali Taj’s play Anarkali, Mughal-e-Azam tells the legend of the beautiful courtesan who falls in love with Prince Salim only to be chained by Akbar, the emperor-father. Khan says that Asif chose to see the story from Akbar’s point of view because he had to sell the idea to a big producer who could bankroll his magnum opus. “The route to find finance for art can lead to fine creative choices. It is said that producer Shapoorji Mistry was a great fan of the emperor and the Persian language. So, Asif sahab told him he would make a film on Akbar. Hence the title, but he found ways to give Salim and Anarkali a voice.”
A scene from the Mughal-e-Azam the musical directed by Feroz Abbas Khan
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Khan has given it shape to suit the sensibilities of a new generation, which he feels, connects with the subject in a different way. “While the film is masculine in its tenor, the play is very feminine in its approach. Be it Anarkali, Jodha, or Bahar, the female voice resonates as they don’t hold themselves back. In the film, Jodha is more perfunctory; here it is hard to forget her part. She doesn’t plead, she talks to Akbar. That is why our female fan base is bigger.”
As the 1960 film has become fodder for memes, another challenge for Khan was to turn its declamatory style of performances into a more intimate one. “I conducted a two-week workshop to ‘de-Mughal-e-Azam-ise’ the actors to prevent them from putting imitation of Prithviraj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar on stage.” Written in the form of Parsi theatre, Khan says, it was not easy to take away “the over-the-top-ness” but still retain the “intensity and power” of the spoken word. “Razzmatazz cannot make a show last this long unless the actors and audience are not attached to the story,” he muses.
For Khan, the play’s success reinforces his belief that if you give something of value and quality, people accept it. “It answers those who say the audience has changed. The language is not easy and the play is a bit languid for things don’t explode from the start. Still, audiences have been able to appreciate its beauty and aesthetics.”
Director Feroz Abbas Khan
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Excerpts from an interview:
There was a dramatic shift in the show when we staged it after the pandemic because the pathos and loneliness they faced found a reflection in the performance. While happiness is something he aspires for, grief makes a man. The actors experienced something that had never happened before. The sensitivity that emerged out of despair, loneliness, and insecurities opened them up emotionally and there is a quantum leap in the expression. I guess COVID-19 became a wound for them, and now the performance is a healing process.
After COVID you can keep the biggest star in your pocket, but the world over the audience is seeking live entertainment. Humans can’t remain in the virtual world for long. After the device came into our pocket, the ritual of going out for a live performance at an appointed time had waned, but it is gathering traction again.
I admit the tickets are expensive, but art is more about taste than accessibility. It is impossible to get tickets for live shows of Indian artists like Arijit Singh and Diljit Dosanjh when cinema halls are not finding an audience despite a drop in ticket prices and releasing old films. This January in Mumbai, Mughal-e-Azam’s 21 shows went houseful without a single advertisement. The play doesn’t make big money. It only recovers its high cost. A musical like this should have a permanent address, but we keep moving like a nomad because of the lack of performance spaces for grand Broadway-like productions.
India is more nuanced than it seems. When audiences consume art and entertainment they are, by and large, not communally and religiously minded. The Indian mind is fascinating. It can compartmentalise. I remember the audience swooning to Pakistani artists singing Padharo Mahre Des during the Aman Ki Aasha programmes held after the Gujarat riots and 26/11. Today when Amjad Ali Khan performs, there are hardly any Muslims in the audience.
Mughal-e-Azam is a hit not because Muslims are watching it. I mounted another grand production, Civilisation to Nation for NMACC, without any tilt towards a particular kind of thinking. People from all political hues watched the show and congratulated us. Some cultures tolerate diversity, we celebrate it. I am not denying what is happening but we should not deny this as well. If we do, we might become extreme in our conclusions.
I am very uncomfortable with success. You can only grow by doing what seems impossible for you to do. If you remember, before Tumhari Amrita, I did a musical in Gujarati, the biggest in the language at that time. Letters Of Suresh is the most challenging play that I have done for I struggled with how to make a complex idea accessible. I spent one month with actors deciding whether I would be able to mount it. Then, there is Hind 1957 centred around a Muslim family grappling with the post-Partition image of the community. For me, it is a return to a more intimate space and I am glad that the audiences have absorbed them.
(Mughal-e-Azam will be staged till February 23 at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium)
Kathak dancers of Mughal-e-Azam the musical
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Published – February 14, 2025 07:24 pm IST
