Being Raavan

HOW does one become the other who embodies evil?

- Vikram Sharma

Does the actor empathise with the one who was vanquished and has been remembered as the enemy of god? If Ramayana is a story of Ram, it can't be the story of Raavan, and those who have come on stage to enact the king who abducted Sita perhaps know that the legacy of Raavan extends more than what a stage or a performance can hold. There was wisdom in the one hailed as a demon king.

There is no good or bad. There are characters who aren't black or white like the costumes or the exaggerated makeup. This is no morality play. To play him, you have to set aside the narrative of good over bad. That's why people cry when Raavan dies, an actor who plays Raavan in Ram Leela, says.