What’s Done is Done - The Clowning Macbeth of Rajat Kapoor comes to Ahmedabad

Eminent playwright, wordsmith, actor and filmmaker Rajat Kapoor has always been the talk of the B-town for his film ‘Ankhon Dekhi’ which revived the independent cinema genre in India. On January 11, 2018, Kapoor arrived in the city of Ahmedabad to perform ‘What’s Done is Done’ – his 4th Shakespearean adaptation after Hamlet and King Lear. The play was performed at the Pandit Dindayal Upadhyay Auditorium and it was presented by Gauri Bakshi of The Footlights Theatre.

The perspicacious playwright converted this tragedy into a humorous yet extensively stirring piece of art through featuring clowns as the central characters. On asking why clowns the quinquagenarian creator dotingly replied “I did an improvised play in ’99 called C for Clowns, which continued till ten years and then in 2008 I was intrigued by the thought of remixing classical texts in a contemporary form. Clowns help in reinterpreting the play and to bring out a fresh perspective from the much read Shakespearean tragedies.” On talking about the conventional lingual aspect of Shakespeare, Kapoor dotingly added, “The clowns talk in Gibberish. Its full of fake accents of Italians and Spanish but at the same time, we also have moments, where the lines are kept completely intact in the way Shakespeare wrote them for reflecting originality. After Hamlet: The Crown Prince (inspired by Hamlet), Nothing Like Lear (inspired by King Lear), As You Like It, What’s Done is Done is my 4th Shakespeare experiment with clowns and I may plan to come up with (Rajat’s twisted version of) Romeo and Juliet and Othello soon.”

He elaborated on his process of theatricals saying “My process is improvisation. I ask my cast to play and improvise. What’s Done is Done utterly focuses on the emotion of greed and ambition. So to create my version of it I asked my cast to narrate their own darkest tales. We can’t showcase the way it was projected 400-year-back in some other country.”

Kapoor concluded saying, ” What’s Done is Done is a play that emphasizes on the fact that there is no turning back from the decisions that have been executed. It’s a play that uses clowns as characters, and uses their imagination to bring a unique perspective to the storyline of Macbeth. Our first ever show in Ahmedabad has garnered an overwhelming response from the people here, and it has really made us look forward to our second outing in Ahmedabad for other projects,” said Rajat Kapoor.

The Footlights Theatre Production play is starring a stalwart cast including Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shorey and Tillotama Shome. Rajat’s version of Hamlet has already performed 200 shows, whereas his King Lear has reached up to 120 appearances, we wish him all the best for his version of Macbeth, which emerged in the year of 2016 just in a form of experiment.