A man of the moment.

John Bashford is an unassuming man. His pleasures are simple: the joy of being upgraded to a room in the Taj Palace (instead of the modern wing); Indian food at a middle-class vegetarian restaurant (minus the salad); wonder at the rising towers of Mumbai (aside the poverty a la Slumdog Millionaire). In his workshop, his approach is gentle – he doesn’t raise his voice and seems very happy to impart the knowledge gained from a long career of directing and teaching.

Let not his mildness hide his sharp eye and focussed mind though. The vice-principal of LAMDA knows what he is talking about. When he sees someone act simply, without demonstrating, he jumps centre stage, pointing out the beauty of internalising feelings. Talk about impulse; you’ve already learnt a lot about alertness simply by watching him. And even though he doesn’t use the word, he can’t emphasise the need for simplicity enough.

In fact, simplicity was key to his work at the Masterclass, Theatre Professional’s conducted at P.L. Deshpande Hall in Prabhadevi, Mumbai. He started the session with the participants walking to their breathing, playing catch, and telling a story to a partner, and concluded the day by connecting that breath and impulse work to Stanislavsky’s system. Whether it’s Stanislavsky’s score of physical actions (how we move through the scene, a set of physical actions that are repeatable), or active analysis (identifying scene, unit and bit objectives), his simple take was that Stanislavsky’s work can only come alive if we channelize that body and mind work through our breath and impulses.

Three things stayed in my mind as an observer and a participant that day:

1. Breath and impulse are key to moving.

2. “You only move when you have sufficient motivation to move. The desire for variety is not sufficient motivation.”

3. “Here, today, now.”

One participant commented it would be nice if John could extend the workshop to at least two days. That will of course depend upon his tight schedule when he visits India next. Yet every moment in that one day session was made to count. He was there, that day, present for all who were willing to learn from him, open to all kinds of questions, though he left some for us to ponder about. I went back home wiser.

- Padma Damodaran

Here you go. Get all the details of the IDP, details of instructors etc. here.

Jehan