From the mirror partition of a newly opened hotel, you can see Lillete Dubey gesticulating, her hands making formations, something a magician often does before the trick. She continues to do so, as we join her, and the cast of her play Gauhar Jaan. Finding a place next to the young Gauhar Jaan (Rajeshwari Sachdev), who has just started to talk about her challenges, we grab a quick yet rested look on the woman new in this circuit the famous sufi singer, Zila Khan playing the older Gauhar Khan in the play. And we do register the actor in a hat, Danny Sum, another one with salt and pepper hair, Denzil Smith, the relatively quiet one, Anuj Guwara and the two lovely girls, Anushka Swanhey and Parinaz Jal, watching the free-flowing conversation with a smile.
In Chandigarh, for the performance which was organized by the Durga Das Foundation and supported by The Tribune, the cast is brimming with stories… on challenges, on learning’s, on personal experiences, jitters and on the wild card entry of the team – Zila Khan. It’s time for a detailed chat, and who else can open the act better than the hard-task master, director Lillete Dubey.
Lillete: I call Zila Khan my wild card entry, I don’t know what was I thinking when I cast her for the play, but then I am known for these off the wall castings. Also after so many years, I think I can smell an actor. I had said the same to actor-director Farhan Aklitar that he would make for an amazing actor, which he then dismissed saying that it wasn’t possible. You know the rest of the story. So, casting Zila Khan had both an advantage and a disadvantage. Her knowledge of classical music, which is like jazz, free-flowing in nature, was a sort of disadvantage. Theatre works on a structured format and she was used to her style of singing freely. Her discipline in music however worked to our advantage.
