The Telegraph UK (May 9, 2012)
Wah! Wah! Girls: Bollywood bursts into the East End
A new stage musical entitled Wah! Wah! Girls brings the pulsating charm
of Indian films to the heart of London, says Laura Thompson.
Wah factor: "The feet, the upper torso, the head – they are all saying
different things"
By Laura Thompson6:35AM BST 09 May 20121 Comment
Later this month, Bollywood comes to Britain, when a musical entitled
Wah! Wah! Girls brings the high-octane spectacle of Indian films to the
stage. In itself, this is not a new idea: 10 years ago Andrew Lloyd
Webber did it with Bombay Dreams. What makes Wah! Wah! Girls different,
and potentially very exciting, is that it is set not in India, but in
the London of 2012.
Whereas Bollywood is defined by a look of opulence and lavish shimmer,
this show takes place in the East End, complete with onstage corner
shop. Its cast of 14, mostly British Asians, also has a role for that
familiar London figure, the Polish handyman.
At the heart of the show is a love story, but more tellingly there is a
confrontation between old India – as symbolised by the traditions of
mujra, a sensuous dance dating back to the Mughal era – and the new
generation that has grown up with modern Bollywood and a more
Westernised “street” attitude. This culture clash is played out
directly through two powerful female roles, and the result might just
bring real meaning to overused labels such as “diverse” and “vibrant”.
More importantly, it should make for a cracking piece of theatre. The
richly collaborative show is written by Tanika Gupta, and its score
interweaves familiar Bollywood songs – “item numbers”, as the parlance
has it – with a new score by Niraj Chag.
Then there are the two choreographers, who first met on a dance floor
at a wedding in Florence. Gauri Sharma Tripathi, a Southbank Centre
artist-in-residence who has worked with Akram Khan, is a highly
distinguished exponent of the ancient dance form kathak. Javed Sanadi,
who made a great hit as one of the “professionals” in the Indian
version of Strictly Come Dancing, is renowned for his work in the
Bollywood style (and indeed choreographed the glamorous Florentine
wedding at which he met Tripathi).
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These apparently dissimilar dance worlds are not, in truth, so far
apart. Bollywood today may have become brasher, flasher and more highly
edited (an excellent way to hide any dancing flaws). Yet its origins go
right back to the Mahabharata, to folk theatre and to classical styles
such as kathak, which in turn influenced the court dancing of mujra. It
is, as Sanadi says, “like a family tree. So many branches, of all the
styles that have been taken on and adapted.”
On a trip to Mumbai, to see the very early stages of rehearsal, I get a
brief and intoxicating sense of this breadth of heritage. Mumbai (or,
as its inhabitants call it, Bombay – don’t tell the BBC), has of course
become a home to emblems of capitalism, in the form of mammoth
skyscrapers and a glistening new road bridge that extends into the
Arabian Sea. Yet in a pretty house on the outskirts of the city, the
mysteries of old India are on mesmerising display.
Tripathi’s mother, Padma Sharma, is a legendary figure in the world of
kathak. For a few unforgettable minutes she gives a masterclass,
dancing barefoot to the rhythm of her daughter’s chanting as her small
audience – Sanadi, four young dancers and me – watch enraptured. What
is extraordinary is the way that the lower body remains rooted,
stamping and swaying, while the hands and head make small, immaculate
gestures of amazing expressiveness. “The feet, the upper torso, the
head – they are all saying different things,” says Tripathi.
It is easy to see how all roads lead back to this style, which is
indeed – as Tripathi puts it – “like savouring a beautiful-tasting
wine”. After this, Javed Sanadi, who is himself classically trained,
takes the dancers through a couple of swift, dazzling routines that
will later be re-choreographed on the British cast. Despite the greater
attack of the more modern style, the movements retain the old qualities
of playful eloquence, of sensual engagement with the spectator. The
cast of Wah! Wah! Girls are actors, first and foremost, and inevitably
the dancing in the show will be more about capturing a feel, an
atmosphere, than about technical know-how.
Tripathi describes the process of “getting the vocabulary into their
bodies”, something that has been hard, given just four weeks’
rehearsal, but also intensely enjoyable. “Because they are actors, when
they clock what you are talking about, it’s there. I just had to hack
it through without breaking their confidence.
“And so much of it is about the vibrancy of the face – that’s pure
Bollywood. I knew that it was a tough terrain we were treading on,
trying to find people who could act and sing and dance.
But what we were looking for was a little madness and hunger in the way
that they danced. An authenticity.”
In the rehearsal hall at Clapham, south London, the cast go through
their final number, best described as a Bollywood rap. Their unified
voices sound alive with passion but also with a relaxed, very British
kind of humour. This, indeed, is achieving what Sanadi describes as the
aim of the show: “Bollywood with essence of London”.
Key to the enterprise is director Emma Rice, of the acclaimed theatre
company Kneehigh. Tripathi says: “We all grew up watching Bollywood. It
is part of our lives. Emma didn’t know the world in that way – so the
clichés of interpretation could be avoided.”
It seems apt, in fact, that Theatre Royal Stratford East (along with
Sadler’s Wells and Kneehigh) is one of the producers of this show,
because it feels very much like something that Joan Littlewood might
have conceived, had she been creating theatre in London today.
As for that bizarre title – what exactly does it mean? “Wah,” says
Tripathi, “is a very old word. It dates back to the Mughals. It’s an
expression, a sort of 'wow’, to show that you appreciate whatever you
are savouring. It’s what you say when your senses have been gratified.”
Here’s hoping.
At the Curve, Leicester (0116 242 3595) May 16-19, and previewing at
the Peacock Theatre, London WC2 (0844 412 4300) from May 24
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