“Nothing Like Lear” Leaves Bhubaneswar In Smiles And Tears

“Nothing Like Lear” Leaves Bhubaneswar In Smiles And Tears

Imagine William Shakespeare’s evergreen plays with the protagonist a robe-wearing clown! Rajat Kapoor’s “Nothing Like Lear” with Vinay Pathak owning the stage in the robe had Bhubaneswar mesmerized on Friday evening. This 90-minute drama not only carried humour but presented all the elements of The Bard’s “King Lear” and left audience glued to their seats. The play was brought to the City by Zain Foundation as their annual fundraiser programme for autism.

There is a back story to how the clown came into the scene. “The clown which I am playing happened many years ago when I and Rajat were working on a script. We were supposed to do the threepenny opera but due to technical reasons it did not materialize,” said the talented actor in an exclusive interview with My City Links.

So, the duo decided to give it a shot without getting worried about the consequences. “Rajat was very fascinated with clowns. We both worked and developed the character, its laugh, its language, its body language, acts of love and hate. Eventually, what came out was completely an original thing. After that we weaved clown-series of Shakespeare’s plays “Hamlet”, “Macbeth”, “King Lear”, “As You Like It” and so on,” he informed.

“Nothing Like Lear” has all the themes of “King Lear”- authority, blindness, father-daughter and father-son relationships, tyranny, frustration, betrayal. All of it is shown through the comic eyes of the robe-wearing clown. 

In fact, “Nothing Like Lear” is nothing like “King Lear” but everything that it has. 
“A play is the reflection of our real lives. Be it for a camera or theatre, as an actor I take it up as a challenge and do justice to it. Since the theatre is the older cousin of cinema, it gives the actor a certain liberation,” says Pathak.
Like in many countries, he argues strongly that artists and audiences must protect the theatre culture like other art forms in India as well. 

Both Rajat and Vinay felt that Bhubaneswar has been a lovely audience and it can not only sustain theatre but also can present it in the more decorative form than cinema.