Entertainment

Rajinikanth; poster of ‘Prête-moi ta main’

Shatarupa Bhattacharyya found herself fascinated by Medea, the Greek mythological character, when she first read about the sorceress many years ago. “I have been practising theatre for a good 14-15 years now, and in the middle of my theatre journey, I realised that I only wanted to do plays with strong female characters…which talk about women’s journeys,” explains the Bengaluru-based theatre artist and social scientist.

Medea, says Shatarupa, interested her because she (Medea) had empowered herself. “I was intrigued by the storyline, the character’s agency and the emotional drama, but I also wanted to make it a simpler version because Medea has been done a lot. I wanted to place that premise into contemporary times.”

This is exactly what Shatarupa has done with Silvatein – The Wrinkles in Time, a Hindi play that she has written and directed. Performed by the Quissa Collective, it will be staged on August 17 at Medai – The Stage, Koramangala, as part of the third edition of Theatre Binge. This will be the 14th performance of the play, which premiered in Bengaluru in March 2024 and has travelled to Jaipur, Alwar, and Kolkata since its debut.

Though originally written in English, the play was translated into Hindi by Puneet Gupta because of the context and a very Indian storyline, explains Shatarupa. “I wanted its authenticity to come out and I wasn’t getting that in English,” she says. “Hindi made it conversational; English was making it dialogue-oriented.”

Silvatein, which tells the story of an encounter between two seeming strangers, Rupali Choudhury and Arijit Mallick, is an “autopsy of incompatibility,” says Shatarupa. “As a playwright and director, my objective was not to sensationalise a breakup drama. What I wanted was an exploration of what happens after relationships have ended, and when people replay and reinterpret the past.”

The form of the play is ambiguous, with the two people on stage remembering their relationship differently, making the audience question whose truth they are watching. Also, Shatarupa has attempted to structure the play to mimic how human memory seems to work. “It is not a straight chronology; the narrative is fractured, like how memory works. We do not remember things in a linear fashion.”

The play also comes from a personal space, says Shatarupa. “One of the key elements that I wanted to have in this play is everyday feminism, something that I have seen in my family.”

Her early understanding of feminism, came from her mother, grandmother and aunt, “before I read Simone de Beauvoir or any other feminist scholar.” According to her, this sort of feminism is not about slogans and grand speeches. “It is about very mundane, almost invisible microdynamics in a relationship.”

Director Shatarupa Bhattacharyya
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

One of the protagonists in the play, Rupali, played by Ujani Ghosh, for instance, refuses to be defined by past relationships, simply because a man insists, says Shatarupa.

Ujani, who sees Rupali as a woman who carries herself with quiet strength, describes her character as “someone who is stoic on the outside, but constantly navigating the undercurrents of the memory that is there. There are moments where she discovers that her history doesn’t define her; it shapes her into a person with agency, choice, resilience…”

The character of Arijit, played by Sagnik Sinha, on the other hand, appears to have more shades of grey to him. “It is easy for someone like me, when I am playing Arijit, to see him as a bad person,” says Sagnik . But, over time, he realised that “every person is justified in their own truth. It was essential for me to keep that judgment aside and treat the character like a normal person.”

The play, Shatarupa says, does not vilify men. “The male character that Sagnik plays is human and flawed. A lot of times, after the play ended, I’ve had audience members come up to me and say that they empathise with this character.”

By showing the man’s perspective, Shatarupa says, the play is trying to make the audience uncomfortable in a productive way. “The point is not to punish the male characters but to reveal how two people can still live in completely different versions of the same reality.”

Silvatein – The Wrinkles in Time will be staged on August 17 at Medai – The Stage, Koramangala, 3.30 pm onwards. Tickets, priced at ₹350, are available on BookMyShow

Published – August 12, 2025 05:05 pm IST

The stage at Sir Mutha Venkata Subba Rao Concert Hall is dressed in shadow, the kind that makes you lean forward and wait for something to begin. A faint spill of light then catches the edges of the microphones, the outline of the conductor’s stand, and the shimmer of brass tucked into a corner. For a moment, the audience becomes a part of the frame: still waiting with bated breath for the first cue. Then, A night at the movies begins as the Mellow Circle choir steps forward. 

Act I: The Overture

The opening chords of ‘A dream is a wish your heart makes’ fills the auditorium, the harmonies, a reminder that this choir has been at the heart of Chennai’s music scene for over two decades.

The Disney medley unfolded like shot of a film with ‘A whole new world’ gliding effortlessly into ‘I’ve got a dream’ followed by ‘When you wish upon a star’. When ‘Can you feel the love tonight’ arrived, accompanied by ballet movements that traced arcs across the stage, it felt less like a song and more like a scene — the kind that leaves a theatre hushed for a few seconds after the last note. 

It was a gentle beginning, but it set a high bar. As Chrystal Farrell, retro band A26’s lead female vocalist, said later, “We wanted people to feel like they were stepping in to watch a movie, not just a concert. The choir gave us the perfect opening — that sweep of nostalgia and hope draw you in before you even realise.” 

The choice of repertoire — music that speaks of resilience, joy, longing, and connection — seemed to reflect that purpose without becoming didactic.  The opening chords of ‘A dream is a wish your heart makes’ filled the auditorium, their harmonies polished, yet warm, a reminder that this choir has been at the heart of Chennai’s community music scene for over two decades.

Act One: The Overture 

A choir was also a part of the performance.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

It was a gentle beginning, but set a high bar. As Chrystal Farrell, A26’s lead female vocalist, said later, “We wanted people to feel like they were stepping into a film, not just a concert. The choir gave us the perfect opening — that sweep of nostalgia and hope that draws you in before you even realise it.” 

Act Two: The Score Comes Alive 

The shift in the mood was almost cinematic. As the choir stepped back, A26 took the stage with confidence. The opening chord of the Top Gun theme rang-out and the concert’s second act began with a rush of instrumental film themes. Mission: Impossible pulsed with tightly wound rhythm, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly carried the unmistakable whistle of a desert standoff, and The Godfather unfurled in Grayston Vaz’s guitar lines with a reverence usually reserved for orchestras. 

“Some of the greatest scores in cinema are instrumental,” Chrystal pointed out. “We wanted to give them their due, but also make them ours. You can’t just copy an orchestra, so we reimagined them with our textures: guitar solos, trumpet accents, rhythm sections that still carry the drama.” From there, Pirates of the Caribbean galloped forward on Clifford Siquiera’s drumming, before Game of Thrones came as a brooding, late addition that fit so well it seemed inevitable. 

Only then did the vocals arrive. ‘Nothing’s gonna stop us now’ served as both a title-card and declaration, bright and expansive. Mrs. Robinson traded Simon & Garfunkel’s folk edge for a looser, more playful tone. Skyfall followed — dark and deliberate, Chrystal’s lower register adding weight without tipping into imitation. ‘Life is a Highway’ sent the energy back into high gear, ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin on my head’ offered a breezy interlude, and ‘Shallow’ closed this sequence with the intimacy of a confession. 

The Goan band — A26 — gave a high-energy performance in Chennai
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Throughout, the band — Lester Rodrigues (lead male vocals and guitar), Chrystal, Alfin Fernandes (on the keyboards and the trumpet), Ignatius Rodrigues (on the keyboards), Marwino Dacosta (on the bass and the flute), Grayston Vaz (on the lead guitar) and Clifford Siquiera (on the drums) — treated each song more like an original. There was room for detail: a trumpet line tucked into a chorus, a flute phrase catching the light, a guitar solo that played like a character’s inner monologue. 

Act Three: The Ensemble Returns 

The choir’s return marked another shift. ‘Tomorrow’ from Annie built-in careful layers, its optimism tempered by restraint. The senior ensemble moved into ‘Into the Unknown’ from Frozen II, their harmonies rising in waves that echoed the song’s cinematic urgency. The junior choir performed ‘I just can’t wait to be king’ from The Lion King, their bright, playful delivery earning smiles.

From there, A26 steered into familiar territory, offering a rock-and-roll-tinged Bollywood-medley and the Konkani classic: Godacho Panv. “Retro is coming back in a big way,” Chrystal said. “Songs from the 60s and the 70s had this live-band energy, clean harmonies and rhythms that crossed cultures. You can twist and waltz to them and they still feel fresh.”  

Act Four: The Finale 

The momentum climbed through ‘What a Feeling’ from Flashdance and the grit of Eye of the Tiger. By Footloose, the aisle had its first dancers. Audience who had sat through the instrumentals in quiet focus were now clapping in rhythm. 

Ballet movements traced arcs across the stage, making it feel less like a number and more like a scene.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

The final stretch felt like a closing montage. The young ones carried a touch of youthful nostalgia before the opening chords of ‘Time of my life’ signalled the finale. The choir and band filled the stage, the audience joined in the chorus, blurring the line between performer and spectator in those last minutes.

“We first did this in Canada,” Chrystal shared. “Now that the production is tight, we want to take it to Mumbai, Bengaluru, maybe Dubai. It’s a format that allows us to stretch as musicians and connects us with the audience in a different way.

A Night at the Movies was staged to raise funds for the Prathyasha Home for Destitute Women.

Published – August 12, 2025 03:53 pm IST

Anupama Parameswaran remembers watching the 1997 Malayalam film Guru as a child and wishing she could step into its fantasy world to meet its characters. “Some films create a make-believe world you want to be part of,” she says, adding that she hopes her new Telugu film, Paradha, will have a similar effect.

Directed by Praveen Kandregula and set to release on August 22, the film stars Anupama, Darshana Rajendran and Sangita, each portraying characters from different social backgrounds.

Travel and folklore

Paradha was completed a year ago, but its release was delayed as the team searched for a date that felt right for a women-led film. “I moved on to work in other films; it was tough for the director and producer,” says Anupama during this interview in Hyderabad. The wait ends soon, with the film set to release on Chiranjeevi’s birthday, considered an auspicious date in the industry.

Director Praveen describes it as a Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara-style road film with the cultural rootedness of Kantara. “He said this to me and Darshana a few days ago and we flipped,” Anupama laughs. “Until then, we thought of it as travel-meets-folklore. I’m not sure if these comparisons will make sense until audiences watch the film.”

Anupama also draws parallels to director Imtiaz Ali’s Highway, citing the same expansive frames paired with an intimate narrative. A promotional video shows her, in a veil, selling colourful paradha (veils) — a visual that becomes a metaphor in the story. “It has elements of an arthouse film and a commercial masala entertainer,” she says.

Female friendships

While Anupama plays a woman from a fictional village in Andhra Pradesh, Darshana takes on the role of a young, urban Indian. Anupama recalls their first scene together with Sangita in a house in Manali. The three had only met briefly during a photoshoot, with no workshops to ease them in. Yet, the scene needed to capture their dynamic. “The chemistry was instant; we don’t know how it happened. That day, we knew the film would come together well. It’s rare for a film to explore female bonding beyond the surface,” says Anupama.

The shoot involved plenty of travel, which was not without challenges. “I fell ill during the Manali schedule, and months later, we had to resume in Dharamshala as the weather hadn’t been on our side. It’s been quite a journey.”

Female-friendly unit

What made a difference, Anupama says, was the presence of women across different departments, including cinematographer Mridul Sen. This, she explains, was a welcome change for a film centred on female friendships. “Usually, apart from me and my hairdresser, a set is dominated by men. I’m not criticising that way of working, but for Paradha, it was comforting to have more women around. Mridul captured the bond between the characters with real warmth, it’s hard to put into words. Praveen listened to perspectives from women in the assistant director, costume, and cinematography teams, which helped enrich the script.”

Praveen Kandregula and Anupama on set
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

For Paradha, Anupama had to convey emotion largely through body language, her face hidden under a veil for much of the film. She landed the role after her 2021 Malayalam short Freedom at Midnight, which explored female sexuality.

A turning point

Anupama, known for her girl-next-door roles in Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam films, was keen to break that mould. “When the promo was released, there was some negative feedback because my character used the F-word. But once the film came out, I was appreciated. If not for that short film, I might have missed out on Paradha,” she recalls.

Last year’s runaway Telugu hit Tillu Square was another step outside her comfort zone. “I was hesitant for the longest time. I felt uncomfortable in overtly glamorous clothes. But it was a full-length, substantial role. Even now, I get messages on social media asking me not to take up such characters. As an actor, I was eager to try something different.”

Her student-turned-teacher role in the Tamil blockbuster Dragon revealed yet another facet of her. “To be able to do films like Paradha, I also need commercial successes like Tillu Square or Dragon,” she explains.

Anupama also appeared in the Malayalam film Janaki Vs State of Kerala and has wrapped up an “experimental” Telugu film with director Prasanth Varma, alongside a handful of other projects. “Early in my career, I was so excited about work that I would spend sleepless nights waiting to get on set the next morning. That excitement faded midway. But post Freedom at Midnight, I’ve been getting scripts that bring that feeling back. It’s a blessing to be able to choose. I’m also mindful not to damage the career I’ve built over a decade.”

‘Premam’ and after

When Anupama Parameswaran debuted in the Malayalam hit Premam (2015), there was no roadmap. “I come from a lower middle-class family, was naive, and scared to dream big. I don’t even have videos of myself as a teen, only photographs my dad took before moving to Qatar for work,” she recalls. At 16, she featured in a stage play; by 18, she had auditioned for Premam. The film became a phenomenon beyond Kerala, but she faced unexpected backlash. Promotional material, designed by the makers, placed her character at the forefront, leading audiences to believe she was the sole lead. “I was criticised as though I had made a big deal out of my short role. I slipped into depression and avoided Malayalam films for a while.”

A call from writer-director Trivikram Srinivas for the Telugu film A… Aa.., alongside Nithiin and Samantha, opened a new chapter. Since then, Anupama has worked across languages, learning to navigate fame with more clarity and control. “Now I’m wiser,” she says, “and I choose my work in different languages with care.”

Published – August 12, 2025 03:41 pm IST

British film composer James Everingham remembers the first thing he reached for when he felt unsure about a cue for Chief of War. “The touchstone was always traditional Hawaiian music,” he says. “The rhythms, the way we used vocals, the way the melodies were shaped… that was our starting point and something we returned to again and again.”

The Apple TV series, co-scored with Hans Zimmer, called for music with cinematic sweep and cultural immersion. Across nine episodes, Jason Momoa’s Ka‘iana travels from island politics to ocean battles to personal reckonings. “You’ve got Jason Momoa as the lead, and it isn’t just set in Hawaii,” James explains. “You’ve got the politics of the chiefs, these huge battles, romance — so many elements that need to be scored in a cinematic way, because this is ultimately entertainment. But Hawaiian musical culture had to be at the core of everything we wrote.”

Part of that meant knowing when to lead and when to step back. Much of Chief of War is performed in Ōlelo Hawai‘i, the island’s critically endangered indigenous language, whose cadence and melody often feel inherently musical. “If you put traditional Hawaiian music — sung in ʻŌlelo Hawai‘i — over dialogue in that language, it can be quite challenging,” James explains. Scene by scene, the team would decide whether to let Hawaiian vocals drive the score or to keep them atmospheric, allowing the dialogue to breathe. That could mean percussion, lyricless vocals, or the Hawaiian nose flute in place of sung lyrics.

A still from ‘Chief of War’
| Photo Credit:
Apple TV

Key to this was collaboration with Grammy-nominated Hawaiian singer Kamaka Iwa Kanakaole, who wrote lyrics that incorporated the events unfolding on screen. “Instead of just the vowels you usually might get in cinematic vocals, you can make out this real emotion in her voice, and it’s inherently tied to what’s happening,” James says.

In his toolkit of sounds were instruments few outside Hawaii have heard: the oeoe (pronounced “oi oi”), a hollowed-out gourd swung overhead to create a ghostly whistle; the pahu, a shark-skin drum; the puniu, a smaller knee-strapped drum used in hula; the kaʻekeʻeke, a bamboo idiophone with a tonal thud. Notably absent was the ukulele. “The ukulele is not from the Kingdom of Hawaii. It came later with the annexation. We tried to avoid the tropes,” he says.

If Chief of War broadened James’ musical vocabulary, it also reshaped his creative process. “I had to make a very conscious effort to keep things loose enough that when I go to Hawaii, when I meet these incredible artists, there’s space for that to come into the music,” he says. “Some people who know a lot more than I do about traditional Hawaiian music are going to put their stamp on it and take it to a whole other level.”

That brand of openness fits well alongside Hans Zimmer. The two have worked together on multiple projects, but James still notes moments that remind him why Zimmer is, well… Hans Zimmer. “He’s so great at understanding the core of the story, putting aside all the flashy things that might be on screen and really diving into the core themes and the identity of whatever project it might be,” he says. “For Chief of War, there are these themes of identity, belonging and cultural significance. And Hans is excellent at dialling into that.”

Zimmer also pushed him to step outside his comfort zone. “Sometimes when you’re co-scoring a project with someone, it’s easy to gravitate towards the scenes that come naturally,” James says. “Something I found surprising is actually the value in doing something that doesn’t come naturally… maybe figuring that out yields a more unexpected result.”

Their work on Chief of War comes after a curious overlap in their histories with one of the world’s great instruments. In 2020, with the Royal Albert Hall shuttered for the first time in more than a century, James led a small team to capture the voice of its 9,999-pipe organ for a virtual instrument library. “It was really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he says. “For the first time since it opened in the 1800s, it was empty and available.” Microphones were placed across the empty auditorium, a binaural pair in the Royal Box to catch the air and resonance as it swelled through the space.

Around that same quiet stretch of months, organist Anna Lapwood was also playing it under special access, breathing new life into the instrument most often heard at packed galas. There may just be a strange poetry in knowing Zimmer’s score for Interstellar, so defined by its own cathedral organ, never found its way to the Royal Albert Hall. “You probably have to put it down to access. It’s booked out every single day for major performances,” he says. And yet here was James, digitising a sound that Zimmer himself might have once chosen to craft one of the most iconic original scores of the 21st century, had timing and fortune aligned.

James says that his path to projects like these wasn’t born of a single cinematic epiphany. “A lot of people have that moment with John Williams,” he says. “For me, it was the classical music I was exposed to as a child — Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler. Rachmaninoff was just constantly playing in the house.” At seventeen, he recorded his first feature-length score at Abbey Road Studios. Within a few years, he was scoring Amazon’s Grand Prix Driver and working with artists like AURORA on the BBC’s Frozen Planet II.

Now based in Los Angeles, James has built a portfolio spanning television, documentaries, and commercial work, alongside producing sample libraries like Woodchester Piano and Fractured Strings. His latest feature work was on Paul Schrader’s 2024 documentary The Blue Angels, a chronicle of the United States Navy’s flight demonstration squadron — the same outfit that famously inspired the fighter-pilot swagger of Top Gun. It’s a neat twist of fate that Zimmer also helped score Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited sequel to Tony Scott’s 1986 original.

James Everingham
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

F1 director Joseph Kosinski directed Maverick, and James cites him as a dream collaborator for his ability to maintain high-entertainment value with grounded realism. He also names Scott, who directed the original Top Gun, as a formative influence. “Many directors are influenced by him,” James says, “and maybe one day that legacy will live on in someone else I get to work with.”

For now, James stands as a convergence of these many serendipitous threads. Chief of War seems to have distilled something essential about the work he wants to keep doing. “A lot of the time, film music is a puzzle,” he says. “It’s a continuous discovery of what the musical world is for the project… and ideally something that hasn’t really been heard before.”

Chief of War is currently streaming on Apple TV

Published – August 12, 2025 12:59 pm IST

Taylor Swift
| Photo Credit: AP

Tiger Shroff in ‘Baaghi 4’.
| Photo Credit: Nadiadwala Grandson/YouTube

A still from ‘Mahavatar Narsimha’.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement