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The theatre of excitement

"it gets me my livelihood" and as the prime mover behind Abhimanch, one of Dubai's prominent theatre groups, he is just "living his passion". And for someone who crunches 16 hours of his life everyday for both, he couldn't have been any happier.

"It's creativity isn't it at the end of the day," he says as he settles down into one of those comfy sofas at the Starbucks in Bur Dubai. He seems to be, in today's parlance, a cool guy. All of 30 with a shiny bald head and a relaxed, affable manner, Sohail belongs to the breed of go-getting entrepreneurs who have managed to find themselves a purpose beyond the daily grind.

"I am lucky to be where I am today," says Sohail with a degree of modesty that seems to have served him well since the time he found himself knocking on the doors of the National School of Drama (NSD) in Delhi, India in 1994. "I was trained by the likes of Barry John who gave me an insight into the intricate workings of theatre — from writing scripts to handling production and acting."

Over a period of time and thirty plays later in which he moved from donning the colours to stage-managing the entire production — Sohail found himself steeped completely, passionately, obsessively in theatre. His world had come alive with a million expressions and a thousand sounds each decibel coated with a different emotion. "Theatre is the library of performing arts. Everyday you open a new chapter, unlock a new level. I was completely in love with it." Meanwhile, as time went into a creative meltdown, another chapter was being written in real life.

"Theatre wasn't enough to pay the bills. I had to get a job. My mum thought it would be good if I found a job here in Dubai. I tried finding work with a finance company. They wouldn't hire me," he says recounting the memories of the summer of 1997 when he would spend days hunting for a job under the merciless and unrelenting sun. Ultimately when he did land one, it was because of his theatre background — as a copywriter in a young, fledgling agency in Dubai he was required to be what he had always wanted to be — creative. That was ten years ago. In two years having gone through the rituals of being initiated into the world of choke-hold deadlines and demanding clients, he was ready to launch his own.

Which he did and Fusion Advertising was born and in 2001 he was his very own lord and master. Which also meant that while he could work hard, he could play harder. Play time, however was reserved for finding a theatre group that would let him let-off his creative steam. "Even though there has never been a strong theatre movement here, there were groups dedicated to the art." Nevertheless, as he ingratiated himself with the going-ons of his fraternity, he was disappointed in the fare that was being served up on stage. "It was too concentrated around Hindi theatre. They weren't experimenting much."

Then as luck would have, in 2004 he was introduced to Abhinay, a theatre group that was staging 'Ashad Ka Ek Din' (A day in the monsoon) at the Crowne Plaza in Dubai. "I had gone to see it and I just happened to like the bunch of people who were involved with it. I wanted to join them and they took me in." However, the group came with its share of unwanted, niggling hassles.

"There were some problems. The lady who was running the show had some domestic issues that were not sorting themselves out and in no time she had gone away to London. As time went by, and she showed no signs of coming back, I realised there was a talented group that had been, literally speaking, abandoned."

Not one to give up on his theatrical ambitions or theirs, he managed to with some help from known quarters finally assemble a group big enough to make a theatre company and Abhimanch was born in 2006. All that pent up creative energy finally had an outlet and they were ready to stage their first play 'Cross Connection' at the Indian consulate. As luck and ticket sales would have it, the play was a success.

With the group well and truly on its way, it was time to indulge in a bit of experimentation. With Qaed-e-Hayaa't (The life and times of Mirza Ghalib) staged at the Indian Consulate they introduced the concept of Kalavani (the art and the voice). Performed in chaste Urdu, it segregated the actors and the play reading to two different sides of the stage. "The actors on the left side were performing stills while the readers read out their lines on the right." The novelty of the concept far from disparaging audiences only elicited demand for an encore. "The Indian Consul General called me up personally to say that their phone lines requesting for seats to the play were completely jammed. People from as far as Oman and Bahrain wanted to see the play. It was unprecedented. Who would have thought something to do with Mirza Ghalib would be so successful in this country." Critical acclaim came in from various quarters, and the pain of having self-financed the production vanished into thin air. The third most recent one was 'Agar Sach Kahoon To ( If the truth was to be told) which reined in sponsors has been very well-received too.

All this time, Sohail, careful not to be seen as someone who hogged the limelight, assumed the role of the backroom player. "I didn't want to seen as a hero. For me theatre was not a matter of personal aggrandisement, it was about satiating my need to be involved with the stage. I would take up roles only if there was no one else left." He is happy seeing others reap the fruits of their labour. "People who have been with us have managed to get good breaks in movies, soaps and production houses. I am happy for them." So why has he, despite the offers, resisted temptations to try out acting on the big screen. "It was not that there have been no offers, only that they haven't been meaty enough," he says.

"And then there has been Abhimanch — 13 months and three plays — that speaks volumes of our success. Between the agency, my other businesses and this I have more than enough on my plate."

Of the many things that he wants to do with the medium is to bring the fluid excitement of cinema and merge it with the raw emotion of theatre. He calls it the 'Multimedia Play Vision' — a mix of electronic live play with a pre-recorded screening in the background. It is in this medium he dreams of bringing something like Mughal-e-Azam to the new-age audience.

Another ambition that he intends nurturing to his days of the retirement is ACT (Abhimanch Children's Theatre) — an academy focused at teaching children the finer nuances of performing arts. "The idea is not to train them to become film stars, but to learn the body language to be able to tackle situations in real life with confidence."

PHOTOS: LIAQAT HUSSAIN