ABSTRACT
In 1991, when an invitation came to lead workshops for a small theatre company in the metropolis of Mumbai, I eagerly accepted. Since leaving university a passionate enthusiast for music theatre, in love with its emotional expression, its vibrancy and its explosiveness, I had quickly grown disillusioned. After only three years directing operas in the UK, professional work had expanded my knowledge of politics and money and competition, but I had lost touch with any artistic vision. I cast my mind back to Peter Brook’s epic production of Mahabharata, the extreme reverence it had aroused in me and so many other young theatre enthusiasts during the 1980s; I remembered reading about Edward Gordon Craig’s visionary design innovations and his passion for Indian theatre. So many dedicated and innovative British directors had found inspiration in India. They had entered its mystical nature, its exotic, seductive powers – qualities so opposite to the prosaic commerciality I had come to know as professional theatre in the UK. It was a simple enough assumption that I might do the same.
