At 71, Naseeruddin Shah has the enthusiasm of a 20-year-old when he speaks about theatre, but his experience weighs in when he discusses its future and the threats. In this exclusive chat, he also speaks about streaming platforms and his comeback to direction.

It’s love. It is just sheer love for the work. It is very rewarding in terms of human interaction and in terms of widening one’s horizons – reading new scripts, talking about issues that matter and just going ahead with it. It has always been that way. We have never tried to do much commercial stuff. We did it once with The Odd Couple, which didn’t turn out to be a success, so we abandoned all that.

We then decided to do plays which we felt were important to do. This is what we are doing. The other thing that draws me to theatre every time is how everybody pulls together when working in theatre. Whether you are playing lead or backstage, everybody is pulling together. The so-called stars are not isolated from the rest of the crew and we all are working in the same direction. Everyone gets equal credit. Though the actors are more visible, in terms of teamwork, it is something that one seldom feels in a movie.

This is scary, but it is not the first time that this has happened. There was a very famous play by Vijay Tendulkar, Ghashiram Kotwal, which saw a lot of objection when it was staged, and they received threats to boycott it.

There was Habib Tanveer’s play in Bhopal that was stopped midway. There was an incident in Prithvi Theatre several years ago where activists demanded an apology from the writer of a play called Shakespeare Ki Ramlila, which was a comedy. So, the incident is Shivamogga is not an isolated incident and it is really puzzling. Why do these people, who claim to be guardians of their region, have such thin skins? The play was stopped with the shabbiest of arguments. I hope this does not continue to be a frequent occurrence.

Yes. But how many selfless people like the Kapoor family or Arundhati Nag can you think of, who will build theatre, not for profit, but for the love of it? They are perhaps the only two theatres in the world to build young theatre workers and not bleed them. We definitely need them and someone to take up the initiative, but there aren’t many such selfless people around. There are, however, a number of small venues that are inexpensive and encourage youngsters to perform for audiences of 50-60 in Mumbai. I think that is the only way to go.

The number of people who are involved in theatre is the most encouraging factor. I know that’s true of Mumbai and Kolkata. Delhi is pretty sterile as far as theatre is concerned, and so is Bengaluru. The inclusion of young blood is a positive thing. There are several young people who are writing and directing plays, and doing whatever they can. The work is often uneven, but they find their feet very quickly. When I started theatre in 1975, I don’t recall many young people there. The fact that there is a rush of such youthful enthusiasm and some of these kids have produced good work gives me hope.

This is a blessing. Ironically, the curse of the film industry is the writing. The kids who are writing these plays are writing about subjects that matter to them. They are not writing about borrowed pain. They are not doing plays about the sufferings of the peasants in Bihar. They are writing about the complicated life that our existence has become, the social media devil that has infiltrated everything and other such things. They are not trying to pretend that they are writing classics. They are writing what their heart makes them.

These youngsters don’t have the pressures of facing a producer’s or distributor’s demand of putting in a star, a song or Indian emotions. They are making short films about the scripts that they believe in. And I think that is a terrific grounding for them. For when they graduate to making feature films, hopefully, the same beliefs will remain with them. OTT is the future and we have got to face that.

Yes. If all goes well, I am planning a short film which I want to shoot in October. I have written the script. It has taken me a long time to regain the confidence to make a movie. I made one and it was a disaster in every way. So, I thought I would never ever make a film. But the urge to wipe that blot off my record was just too strong. Hopefully, this film will be better than the first one. I then hope to continue to make movies.