On a Saturday morning in 1988 at the newly created Tramway in Glasgow, The Mahabharata was about to start, but, unusually, it was Peter Brook who appeared first on the stage.
“Look,” he said. “We have problems because one of our actors who plays multiple roles is suddenly indisposed.” He mused, looking more at the ground than the audience, and with furrowed brows. “So we’ll get X to play Y in part one and perhaps A to perhaps to play B in part two and I’m not sure how we cover C in part three.” His tension was palpable. But then he looked up, his brows unfurrowed, his face was full of light. “All I do know,” he said, “is that it’s all going to be tremendous fun!”
He left the empty space chuckling and waving to us all and then we entered the life-transforming nine hours of magic that is The Mahabharata.
