Pic: Narayan Pissurlenkar
Kyla D'Souza has been acting ever since she can remember. “ There is this slightly embarassing story that my parents like to tell about how they didn't what my real voice sounded like when I was younger as I was always imitating the voices of the cartoons on television or the people on the radio,” says D'Souza laughing. “In fact when I came back from school instead of just recounting my day I used to enact it for my parents! So they always knew I would be an actress.”
After completing her acting programme at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, New York, D'Souza who has previously been a part of many theatre companies and productions like Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Might's Dream by the Frog and Peach Theatre Company, came down to India and launched her own company The Peas and Carrots Theatre Company in Mumbai in 2013.
“Peas and carrots is an actors term. When actors in the background don't have any dialogue but have to appear like they are saying something, they usually say peas and carrots to each other,” explains D'Souza on why she chose this name. Through this company she aims to perform plays with timeless themes and speak an universal language that can be enjoyed by people everywhere.
“ The stage is like a home to me. I wanted to do the kind of plays that I fell in love with abroad and which I have grown up around,” says D'Souza, who spent her early childhood in Moscow.
The company, which consists of just two permanent faculty members D'Souza and Australian director Glen Hayden, staged Sam Shepherd's Fool for Love in 2013 and Slawomir Mrozek's Out at Sea in 2014. And D'Souza, whose grandparents hail from Goa, decided to shift base to Goa in July last year. “ I felt that Goa allowed me to be me and to do what I love to do better here. Also, the state is much less commercial than in the big cities,” she says. In running the company she relies
on actors, teachers and directors to come in and conduct workshops. In fact, D'Souza who is playing the part of Babette the Feather Duster in Disney India's Beauty and the Beast recently got Tavish Bhattachartta, who is part of the musical, to conduct a workshop here in Goa and the latter also directed the play No Play by Sarah Provost recently at Carpe Diem. The other play that was staged was David Ive's Sure Thing.
“ My workshops deal with the tools and techniques of acting with a lot of focus on body work, voice and cross engaging with audience. It is about finding out who you are and staying true to yourself,” she explains. “ This is called method acting. This means that you are not acting just reacting.”Apart from this, D'Souza is also a guest lecturer at the Goa Institute of Management.
Speaking about the theatre scene in India, D'Souza states that while there is a lot of good and original stuff coming up in India, theatre actors don't get the respect they deserve. “When you tell people that you want to be an actor, they automatically assume that it is Bollywood but not everyone wants to go there. In fact when I tell people I am a theatre actor, the first question I get is 'Oh. Why?'” she reveals. This lack of attention to the field in turn affects the quality of the work and the funding for it, she states. “At the same time many people look at theatre as just a stepping stone to Bollywood which is sad. You should get into this field only if you love it.”
