Interview with Sakuntala Ramanee, Beth Vyse and Chetna Pandya, actors in Deadeye

Sakuntala Ramanee

Interview: When you read the script for Deadeye, {Sakuntala: Yes}, what were your first impressions of the character of Zainab and were you excited about playing her and have you played similar roles as an actress before?

Sakuntala: Ok, a few questions there! Ok. When I first heard about the role, before I read it, I thought ' Ah right, another Asian mum' , to be honest with you, is what I thought. And, one naturally thinks, ok there are certain limitations with playing that role. When I read it, actually the first time I read it was just before I auditioned for it, before I saw Janet and auditioned for it, I felt rather differently. I started to see a character that was rather interesting. I saw a character who said certain things, but a lot about her was not said, so it was sub-textual. And that interested me a great deal. And I saw somebody who suppressed a lot of feelings and a lot of thoughts and a lot of anger actually, and frustration at the world. And, you know, has one outburst where these things come to the surface and then again suppresses them. So what started to happen was that I saw somebody who was very... there was a lot more to her than playing the archetypal Asian mum. I saw somebody who was old before her time, so not literally old, but sort of carried the weight of lots of people' s problems on her back, and actually when I came to rehearsal and going through the whole process, a lot of those initial gut feelings remained and obviously a lot more came to it when I worked on it. But certain of those initial characteristics were still there.

Beth Vyse

Interviewer: I see you went to Rose Bruford Acting School, I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about that? When would that have been... couple of years ago?

Beth: No, I went there from 1998 to 2001, so...

Interviewer: So quite recently then.

Beth: Yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: Would you say it was a fairly progressive place to be at the time in acting or fairly traditional?

Beth: Yeah, I had no idea what a drama school was and who went there and things and I applied to five universities on my UCAS form and there was a space at the bottom for... and I thought ok, I' ll try a drama school and I came down here and went to Rose Bruford and went ah ok... and I got in and I thought well I' ll just do it.

Interviewer: Why not, why not...

Beth: So that' s why I ended up at Rose Bruford, I didn' t know anything about RADA and Central, I do now obviously, but I didn' t then, cos I' m from this tiny town, well village, called Timbersbrook, near Congleton in Cheshire, so I came from that town and...

Interviewer: So was it quite a shock coming to London then?

Beth: Yeah, it was. Having to get three trains before the one you' re supposed to get, cos they' re all delayed and things like that but...

Interviewer: So when you were there, at Rose Bruford, did you find, what was the ratio of men to women, were there far more women did you find or...

Beth: Yeah, there were more women.

Interviewer: And in terms of people with ethnic backgrounds?

Beth: There was hardly any, there was, in my year there was about five black people, no Asian people.

Interviewer: So it was quite white dominated?

Beth: Yeah, yeah, it was really.

Interviewer: So, presumably you didn' t cover any non-British theatre, was it basically American and British theatre?

Beth: Yeah it was. I mean we did, I did some Polish theatre while I was there, because one of the tutors was taught at the Grotovsky Centre in Poland and so I went over there to do that but...

Interviewer: That' s near Krakow isn' t it? I' ve been there! I went there this summer actually. It was great, it was amazing stuff!

Beth: I really like it but at Rose Bruford, no, we did English plays.

Interviewer: So Deadeye was probably your first interaction with Asian theatre?

Beth: Yeah, yeah, cos I' d mainly worked at the RSC before I came here, so traditional British, they were the token Asian' s or Black' s in the company because there wasn' t many. But now I was the token white!

Interviewer: Yes, that' s the interesting part of your character I think. If I' m not mistaken, I think Janet Steel went to Rose Bruford as well didn' t she?

Beth: Yeah cos Janet directed me in a play at Rose Bruford before my third year, it was a Scouse play, real working class play, and I played this Scouser called Mary and she did the whole play in a bikini and she was, smoking and all that sort of thing. And Janet remembered me from that play.

Interviewer: So she offered you the part.

Beth: No I went in to audition and all that.

Chetna Pandya

Interviewer: Do you approve of the expression ' colour-blind casting' ?

Chetna: Do you know what, I' ve never actually heard of that phrase ' colour-blind casting' , what do you mean?

Interviewer: I think, maybe it' s a thing only white people use then, because that' s why I asked you. It means casting people of any colour as any colour. So, I could by playing a black person but I wouldn' t be blacked up, but I' d be playing a black person.

Chetna: Do you know what, I think for TV more so, but I think that you can, you cast to reflect life. TV, drama, art, its all a reflection of life essentially I think. It' s all to tell a story, to tell someone' s story. And so I can see why TV wise you' d have to cast accordingly to your mother your father. But then you get things like Shakespearian plays and things like that. I did Romeo and Juliet a couple of years ago. It was my first job out of drama school and the Capulet' s were Asian and the Montague' s were English. And it was really interesting, a really relevant way to look at Romeo and Juliet and there were so many things that I found that were so Eastern within it that I could call on myself, and I hadn' t seen Romeo and Juliet like that before and so, I' m not sure, I think it is relevant in some ways but in other ways you can go wild and go free.

Interviewer: Tell me a bit more about Kali, because you' ve worked with them before.

Chetna: Yeah, I' ve only worked with them once before, I did some readings. What happens is, Kali work with a lot of new writing, and so when I first worked with them they were doing something called Kali Shorts, which were a series of about eight plays I think it was, and I was in five of them and they were 20 minute pieces. So the writers had been through developments with people they were working with, with Janet, with the other writers, doing workshops. And this was the first time they would have actors read their plays, and there was an invited audience to come along and watch the performance. And it was a really, amazing experience. That wasn' t too soon after I' d graduated as well, and when you' re in drama school, I didn' t know that there were British Asian Theatre companies and the works that they do, I had no idea. And I' d started researching as I' d gone into my third year and I was like, oh my god, there was this whole new spectrum out there that I never even knew existed. And I' d go see there productions and I got slowly, slowly addicted. It was like there was the voice, and you can see the evolution, you can see the change within the pieces as well. And I think that' s where Deadeye really comes in for me, it shows how relevant, and how things are really changing within the British Asian theatrical community as well. We want to have a different voice; we want to say things that are real. It' s not the commercial outline of things anymore. It' s not about the colours that we wear, it' s not about the songs that we sing, or anything like that. It' s about real people, real people' s lives. It' s about someone out there' s story and I thought that was... I' ve forgotten what the question was originally, kind of went off on my own tangent somewhere. But yeah, Kali, I' ve really enjoyed working with them and actually I' ve just been to see a performance of the piece that I originally performed in, which was a 20 minute piece called Zameen, and it' s now a fully developed hour and a half production, in the studio, and coming from having performed it then when it was, it' s so different as well it' s a different piece but its so valid, it' s so important. And it says it with such clarity and such beauty. It really shows the beautiful Eastern side of where I feel I come from. And it' s that fine balance of the two, and I think when you get it right it can be so magical and amazing and it' s really lovely. So yeah I' ve loved working with them! And I hope to do so again, it' s been a right old ride with Deadeye!