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I went with the company to Pune, lovely train, and then onto Madras, Delhi, Calcutta. In 1958-59, the Oxford Playhouse came to India with a very fine West End cast, including Eric Thompson (a director and actor and whose daughter Emma is a famous film actor), Kay Doubleday, Frank Windsor and Nicholas Winfrey. Frank Hauser, a gifted, taciturn man in charge, let Zia Mohyeddin have his way. He worked with the Guilford Repertory Company fairly often, and Philip North invited him to direct Garcia Lorcas play Yerma. Meanwhile, the British Council suggested that he undertake a tour and study the works of theatre directors such as Tony Richardson and George Devine. He did Jean Anouils Ring Around the Moon, Shahr Bano (Romeo and Juliet) and Thornton Wilders The Matchmaker for the Pakistan Arts Council in Karachi. Very Chekhovian in spirit, it traced the downward slide of an aristocratic family that had migrated from India. It was La Quila se Lalu Khet in Urdu written by Khwaja Mueenuddin from Hyderabad.
#Master of my domain bl achievement professional#
I did the first professional production for them, with proper wages for everybody. He wanted me to do a play and get the newly founded Arts Council of Karachi to fund it. I dont know how, but he did.Īt Karachi Airport bumped into a friend who had been with me in Australia.
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Wasnt bothered by owing too much to the landlady. Jack Brielys budget allowed for only two pros.
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I was paid 25 a week, so was Larry Hagman, one of the professional actors in the troupe. Jack was then setting up plays for American Air Force personnel based in England. In his own words he was lucky to meet Jack (John) Briely, who was to write the script for Richard Attenboroughs film Gandhi. One had to decide whether to buy a tube of toothpaste or have an omelette. We were paid five pounds seventeen shillings and six pence a week. Come Monday night, one started rehearsing another play, which would open the following week on Tuesday. We would work through the week rehearsing a play opening on Monday. Following this stint, he worked with various repertory companies, moved from one to another and considered it as quite a useful apprenticeship. About his being selected, he modestly declared: I was lucky enough to be selected. His childhood love of the theatre reasserted itself, and he proceeded to London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). Asian students from Commonwealth countries were offered training facilities in the media in Britain and Australia. He gave up his masters in psychology to accept an offer to go to Australia under the Colombo Plan in the early 1950s and observe broadcasting methods there on a Frequent Broadcasting Fellowship. Zia was brought up in Lahore and read English literature at the famed Government College. Zia Mohyeddins father was a lecturer in Lyallpur College and a man with literary ambitions. For the record, it was not a school play but a public performance. And although I spoke my lines, it was quite sometime before I realised that it was I who was speaking. As for the actual setting, it appeared to be a space in another world, a dream. The people I had been rehearsing with were strangers whom I had never seen before. It was as though I had lost my sense of recognition. But something happened to me during that first experience. A lot of people who act as schoolboys become lawyers or accountants or insurance agents. It was built in the early 20th century by Sir Henry Lyall and named after him.Ībout his beginnings on stage, he said: It would be foolish of me to say that my acting career began on the stage in a play, written by my father, at the age of 11. I was born in Lyallpur, now known as Faisalabad, in 1933. She was the nawabs daughter and film-maker Muzzafar Alis cousin. Here are some snatches of the conversation:Īsked whether he was from Kotwara, Uttar Pradesh, he said: People often make that mistake. Although pressed for time, he did not once look at his watch, answered every question courteously, and when the interview ended abruptly with questions left hanging in the air, said: If theres anything else you want to know, e-mail me. Talking to him in Delhi on a mellow February morning a little while before he was to take a flight back home to Karachi, one discovered a man of wide experience and enduring charm. In his own domain on the stage, on screen or before television cameras, he immediately catches the eye even if he is not in the foreground. If he stands quietly in a corner of a large, crowded room, you would notice him. At 75, he is amongst the select few in the acting profession who combine undeniable attractiveness with terrific talent. He fulfils Satyajit Rays definition of one, that is, a person who remains interesting even when doing nothing. ZIA MOHYEDDIN is a star in the true sense of the word.