Renowned playwright Mahesh Dattani   and theatre revivalist Mohammad Ali Baig shared an interesting dialogue on stage in Hyderabad recently. The two, known for their contemporary plays took the houseful audience of theatre lovers, engineering and University students, local theatre practitioners, members of the Surabhi Telugu Theatre, Torn Curtains and Dramanon, through the changing trends in Indian stage writing.
 From the era of the 1960s and 1970s which gave Indian theatre playwrights of Indian languages like Vijay Tendulkar, Badal Sircar, Qadir Ali Baig, Shambhu Mitra to the late Chetan Datar, the talk gave glimpses of changing trends vis-a-vis approach to 'plotting' a story and bringing to the center stage,  contemporary issues of urban discord in drama. "Drama is an essential device to bring contemporary issues centre stage," said Mahesh Dattani.
Mohammad Ali Baig highlighted the importance of a three-dimensional approach to a play that includes the collaborative effort of theatre. "When a playwright creates a piece for stage, it is given one dimension, the second comes from the Director who interprets it and the third from the actor who plays the written character," said Baig.
The Q&A session had the audience engrossed with Dattani's wit and Baig's humour.  Baig commendably carried the conversation with Dattani ,one of the most remarkable Indian contemporary playwrights in English today, for more than two-and-a-half hours.
The following day saw the two conducting a workshop on playwriting at Villa Marie College, attended by local theatre groups, MBA and Mass Communication students. The oversubscribed workshop gave the participants an essential insight into the art of playwriting. Dattani and Baig took the participants through various aspects of storytelling, plotting, characterization and conflict. "It was an honour to receive valuable inputs from the two theatre celebrities. It was an amazing session that provided our students much needed guidance and impetus to pursue stage writing," feels Dr. Y. Philomena, Founder-Principal of Villa Marie College. "It was great to listen to such experiences from Mahesh and Baig and they really got chatting well and made it a wonderful experience," felt Mala Pasha of Torn Curtains theatre group.

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