Rajev paul is on his toes as he rehearses at the National Centre of Performing Arts for the play Wedding Album, a day before its premiere. The popular television actor is returning to theatre after six years. More than the comeback, Paul is awed by Lillete Dubey, the play’s director whom he calls “sweet Hitler”.
The reasons for the oxymoron are obvious. Dubey is a tough taskmaster. She wields her baton with an intimidating fetish for perfection as she readies the actors for a repeat take. And yet, she is effervescent.

The sets of her play—her 23rd direction—is characterised by organised chaos, vivid props and contagious energy, similar to the backstage drama this correspondent witnessed before the 15th anniversary celebrations of her Primetime Theatre Company almost two years ago. The celebrations entailed staging the company’s landmark productions—Womanly Voices, 30 Days in September, Sammy and Dance Like A Man.
For Wedding Album, Dubey has teamed Primetime regulars Amar Talwar, Suchitra Pillai and Raaghav Chanana with new entrants such as television actors Neena Kulkarni and Paul. At 10, that’s a big cast for Dubey who’s known to keep her team small.

Pillai, who’s been with Primetime since the decade-old Dance Like A Man, says, “Unlike the off-stage familiarity in our previous plays, I had to establish fresh equations with the new actors this time.” One of them being Paul, who, in fact, decided to return after watching Dubey’s last play Kanyadaan. “Joy Sengupta’s performance in Kanyadaan was the trigger. Never had an actor’s performance awed me so much. The moment it was over, I asked Dubey to cast me in her next,” says Paul.

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