By CHERIE DONNELLAN
FEW in Geelong would be able to identify Rabindranath Tagore as India’s answer to Shakespeare.
This, according to actor Alex Pinder, is “just sad, really”.
Pinder, an Australian stage and screen actor whose family descends from Tagore’s hometown of Calcutta, told the Independent that Australians should be aware of Indian culture given the rise of the so-called Asian Century.
Pinder considered Tagore an Indian cultural icon as a “prolific” writer, educator, lyricist responsible for the country’s national anthem and well-known folk songs as well as being a Nobel Prize winner to boot.
Pinder thought creating In the Middle of the Night, a one-man play combining two of Tagore’s short stories, made perfect sense.
“Tagore was alive during the British rule of India and he studied in London, so when people see the play they say he sounds very English.
“I thought about it for a while and think he would have been influenced by Victorian writers like Dickens – well, that’s my imagination, really.”
Pinder said his audience could expect to laugh and sob at the play’s two “ghost stories” when he peformed at Drysdale’s Potato Shed tomorrow night.
Themes of death, love, identity and belonging were universal human experiences that Tagore “told beautifully” would be brought them to life in the one-and-half-hour show, Pinder said.
He shrugged at the challenge of having to articulate many characters – male and female – through his body and voice alone.
“It’s just a bigger version – well, a lot bigger version – of a parent telling a story to their child.”
But, having studied theatre under famous French acting instructor Jacques LeCoq, who also taught the likes of Geoffrey Rush, Pinder might have an edge.
Pinder’s In the Middle of the Night begins 7.30pm.
