I am itching to do comedy: Ira Dubey

21/10/2017

Ira Dubey calls herself a Delhi girl and a Bombay person, but she loves the calm and quiet of Pune. The actor, who was in the city for her mother Lillete Dubey’s play, 9 parts of Desire, has performed in six different plays over the past 10 days. Does it get physically and emotionally draining to portray varied characters one after the other? Ira says, “My co-actors and directors often tell me that I invest a lot as an actor. But I feel that I am just doing my job. In the West, or for that matter in Marathi and Gujarati theatre too, the actors are on the stage for 25 days a month. Naseer sir (Naseeruddin Shah) recently had a month-long run of his play, Father, in Mumbai. We are spring chickens next to him. Yes, it does get draining during rehearsals and practice. However, during the performance, it is the craft, and I cannot let anything affect me on stage.”
The Aisha (2010) actor is currently on the lookout for comic roles. She says, “I am itching to do comedy. I feel I haven’t explored that side of myself enough. In fact, I have done a little bit of comedy in my films, but nothing on stage. I would like to explore it more in both mediums.”
Ira is also open to working on television and the web, but she says she hasn’t been offered the right part yet. “I have been offered roles in TV before, but it was never doable for many reasons. Now, with the emerging trend of finite series, I think TV is doable. I am an artist who likes to do several things at one time, and that is a healthy way to be. However, I’ll have to commit six months to a year to a TV project, so it has to be really worth the time.” Armed with an education in theatre, Ira feels one’s training and ground work is multifaceted. “A part of your professional training is academic and a lot of it is your ground work. You have to understand the nuances of lighting and the jargon of the technicians. The more importance you give it, the more importance it will get from the world. Mom always says Bollywood and cricket rule the country. So, to give theatre importance and impetus, we have to do it ourselves.”

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