I was in India the first time I truly saw the moon. On a night train from Agra to Varanasi, we stopped somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by paddy fields. It was hot, and we couldn't sleep. As it became clear that we would be there for a while, we got down to stretch our legs. Suddenly one of my companions gripped me - `where is the light coming from?' he whispered. As we walked away from the lights of the train, I realized, as he did, that we could see each other clearly, and were even casting shadows. But the train was not lit that brightly - where was it coming from? Suddenly I looked up. The moon. It was full and hanging low in the sky, brighter and larger than I had ever seen it before. The light was coming from the moon. Bright silvery moonlight strong enough to read a book by, and to give us each a moon shadow.
I was back in India this spring, in Mumbai, to photograph a new production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The plays is perhaps the most accessible of Shakespeare's output - fun, silly, perhaps even ridiculous.
This production, funded by the British Council and touring India at the time, is ground breaking for its use of an all India cast and crew. The British Council's purpose in the world is, as one of its own officials put it to me, to `spend Foreign Office money'. It has offices throughout the world that run English classes, education projects and cultural projects - most usually British productions touring the world or some part of it. This project stands out as something of a pioneer against this backdrop, in that the only member of the team to be British is the director and creator, Tim Supple.
It is a hot sultry night in Mumbai and there is another full Indian Moon hanging bright and heavy in the sky. In the middle of a district in Bandra, where conferences, concerts and other temporary events are held, a team of India Circus-whallahs have built an 800 seater temporary theatre. It is open to the air, and as the sunset at around 7pm and the sky above filled with bats, the long queue of people outside began to get seated.
On this first night, a technical hitch with light delays the beginning and which at first adds to the excitement in the air, before the crowd start to get restless. In the end, the lighting kicks into action and Puck takes to the stage.
The Indian and Sri Lankan cast come from all over the sub continent and from backgrounds in theatre from street performers and generations of circus families to budding Bollywood actresses from the heart of the Mumbai theatre scene. The play is performed in seven languages, including The original Shakespearean English, Hindi, Bengali, Malyam, Tamil and Singla.
Although on paper this seemed extraordinary, while watching it I was surprised how little I noticed the language changes - they seemed appropriate to the dreamlike qualities of the play - and it was not at all a problem for the plot.
Certainly the watching audience didn't seem thrown - it is true that many Indians speak several languages and sophisticated Mumbai theatre goers almost certainly know English as well as several India languages.
However, performance and communication and conveying story are only partly about language. Visuals, emotion and delivery tell much of the story, and it struck how much more clearly I saw this when I couldn't follow the exact words.
The story itself takes to its Indian setting supremely well. The production invokes Bollywood themes - themselves often very Shakespearian - with song, dance, mistaken identity, dream sequences and big set pieces. More seriously it also echoes ancient Indian and especially Hindu myths - of Queens, spirits, the supernatural, disguise.
The play sweeps through its journey so beautifully it is hard to remember sometimes that it was not written to be performed here, in this way, with its acrobat actors swinging through the air, and a young child climbing a rope as if it were a flight of stairs. Songs and music - which can sometimes seem crass in the starchy environment of the Swan or the Barbican, here in a country where song is so celebrated, make perfect sense and have the whole audience swaying along, on their feet in standing ovation by the end.
What this ground breaking project really does it start to spread what is these days one of the UK's greatest strengths. Amid the analysis of what has gone wrong when our own sons want to bomb our capital, it is easy to forget how much of modern British Culture is mixed and melded - perhaps more than any other modern culture. It is so normal in our cities it is easy not to notice it. From hip street sounds of bangra or drum and bass or UK Garage to the stages of our most high brow theatre modern UK culture is a highbred of so many different influences, and it is so accepted it should be so, that it is easy not to notice it when you live here.
In India, to draw a cast from so many different strata's of society, to tell the story in many different languages, is a revolutionary idea. Tim, the director tells me that he was told several times by leading members of Indian theatre, and in no uncertain terms, that it would never work.
But work it does, as a exhilirating, moving, success. It is a production which asks its audience to look again at Modern India, and rethink our conception of it.
For while it may be true that the British and the Indians have an affinity for each other - with our similar class systems, love of tea, cricket and bureaucracy. This production moves far beyond that cliché to reflect the sub continent as it is, both more modern and more ancient.
A Midsummer Night's Dream runs at Stratford as part of the Complete Works season from 7 - 17th June 2006 Information and ticket booking at the RSC
