Everything piece of infrastructure I have seen in India so far has maintenance issues. Some of the more loved spaces have less than others, but visiting the movie theatre in Udaipur showed me just how important fantasy is in a country where life is a dose of reality on a minute by minute basis.
This theatre was built in 1972, seats 1000 and shows movies day in day out. Bollywood produces twice as many movies annually as Hollywood.
The thing that struck me most strongly was that the exterior, and particularly the interior, of this theatre is in PERFECT condition. Not a mirror is broken, not a light bulb blown, not a torn carpet, no stains on the walls, no holes in walls, no electrical cabling running exposed and hickeldy pickeldy. It looked as good as the better historic theatres in Australia. Unless you have been to India you are not going to get quite what I mean...
Watching a Bollywood movie is also an extreme fantasy experience... this particular story was like a cross between the stage play 'Chicago', a James Bond movie, a Mills and Boon romance and a Jacki Chan Kung Fu movie, all thrown together with a dose of G&S operetta side-kick comedy. There were no sub titles in English and we didn't need it. The audience is treated to the back story as the drama unfolds - to make sure you don't miss anything - before the good guys and bad guys work out what is going on :).
The audience cheers and boos, claps and gasps as the plot unfolds. The cheap seats down the front join in the loudest and everyone, even in the posh boxes, seems to have a heart lifting good time. I had a thought that Shakespeare's audience would have been similar to contemporary Indian. Both audiences escape from their everyday through theatre.
This theatre was built in 1972, seats 1000 and shows movies day in day out. Bollywood produces twice as many movies annually as Hollywood.
The thing that struck me most strongly was that the exterior, and particularly the interior, of this theatre is in PERFECT condition. Not a mirror is broken, not a light bulb blown, not a torn carpet, no stains on the walls, no holes in walls, no electrical cabling running exposed and hickeldy pickeldy. It looked as good as the better historic theatres in Australia. Unless you have been to India you are not going to get quite what I mean...
Watching a Bollywood movie is also an extreme fantasy experience... this particular story was like a cross between the stage play 'Chicago', a James Bond movie, a Mills and Boon romance and a Jacki Chan Kung Fu movie, all thrown together with a dose of G&S operetta side-kick comedy. There were no sub titles in English and we didn't need it. The audience is treated to the back story as the drama unfolds - to make sure you don't miss anything - before the good guys and bad guys work out what is going on :).
The audience cheers and boos, claps and gasps as the plot unfolds. The cheap seats down the front join in the loudest and everyone, even in the posh boxes, seems to have a heart lifting good time. I had a thought that Shakespeare's audience would have been similar to contemporary Indian. Both audiences escape from their everyday through theatre.
No comments:
Post a Comment