This interview was originally published in 2012.

He is not as intimidating as he is cracked up to be, provided you know how to strike up a conversation with him, and where to chime in with a reply once he is in full flow trying to explain the finer points of the art of acting.

For sure, he is very well-informed and knows a heck of a lot about theatre, literature and fine art. So it cannot be less than a fortuitous encounter if Zia Mohyeddin, chairman of the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) and a top-notch artist, takes out time to talk to a newspaper man.

The academy that Mohyeddin runs has been successfully staging plays and producing music concerts. Some of its graduates have found their calling and are doing reasonably well in different spheres of showbiz.

The one criticism that is often levelled against the Napa Repertory Theatre is its predilection for doing Urdu and English classics and ignoring the relatively contemporary repertoire of world theatre.

Mohyeddin does not agree: “To me diction is the most important thing. You have to first learn how to pronounce the word ‘qubool’ (with a thick qaaf) the correct way, and then it is all right if the character you’re playing pronounces the same word ‘kubool’. This you can only learn after studying the classics. Once you know your diction you are capable of doing anything. Also bear in mind the aspect of breath control. The actor should say his lines without fading awaytowards the end. I’m a bit of a classicist. Reading heightened prose helps the actor control the breath in a better way. [At this point Zia sahib reads from a classic Urdu play to demonstrate the importance of reading the lines with proper stresses and pauses and without going out-of-breath.] It’s all part of the acting technique. The actor should hide his technique, not wear it on his sleeve.”

It all sounds convincing to a great extent. But a true theatre buff misses the likes of John Osborne, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard and Yasmina Reza, particularly when Napa has rejuvenated the dormant theatre scene in the country.

“It is extremely difficult to do Pinter on stage [his admiration for the playwright can be readily noticed from his face]. As for Yasmina Reza, we intend to do one of her plays in the near future,” Mohyeddin says.

This brings us to the issue of the paucity (if not nonexistence) of original scripts written for the theatre in Pakistan.

Mohyeddin concedes, “Yes, there are no original scripts. Mediocrity is an issue here. You have to create with a certain degree of excellence. The problem is with the culture that exists in our society. I remember once in Lahore while I was boarding a public transport bus I ran into a friend of my father’s. He asked me what I was up to. I replied I was into acting. He was taken aback and said he’d known my father for long time and that my father was a shareef aadmi. He’d talk to him (father) about my penchant for acting. This is the kind of attitude that people show towards performing arts.”

“The reason the West keeps producing good original scripts for the theatre is that they are deeply committed to their art,” explains Mohyeddin. You can sense he does not say this with glee. After all, he is from Pakistan.

Those who Mohyeddin befriends believe he is a voracious reader. There’s hardly any evidence to doubt that. He is eloquent and knows his Dickens and Shakespeare like the back of his hand. What does he think of the current crop of Pakistani novelists writing in the English language? Has he read any of their stuff?

“I enjoy reading the young Pakistani writers’ books. Home Boy by H.M. Naqvi is a good attempt at describing young Muslims’ lives in the US. I also liked Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif. It’s good that these writers are coming up. What had happened was that after the acceptance of Indianised English by the West, Indian volume (of novels written in English) had increased. Writers like Anita Desai and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala made a name for themselves in the ‘60s and subsequently work of Arundhati Roy was widely acknow-ledged. So it’s good that now Pakistani writers have made a name for themselves.”

In his early days of poetry recitation (an art that many think he has mastery over), the one poet that Zia Mohyeddin read out with passion — and frequency — was N.M. Rashid.

He had personally known the enigmatic poet and even spent some time with him. Sadly, not much is known about Rashid. Perhaps Mohyeddin could shed some light on the poet and his unmatched nazms.

“He was a great Urdu poet of the 20th century. The reason he is yet to get his due in the literary canon is because he is difficult to understand. He was well-versed in many languages, including Persian. He also knew his Baudelaires and Rimbauds well. It is likely that his symbolism may have been inspired by the French symbolists and imagists. Also, he didn’t want to indulge in the gul-o-bulbul type poetry. It was a conscious effort to veer off that track,” points out Mohyeddin.

Surely, Rashid’s personal traits may have been the reason for the critics and fellow poets’ turning a blind eye to him. Mohyeddin opines, “His contemporaries didn’t talk much about him because he couldn’t suffer a fool. He was disillusioned with the progressives too. Rashid was a bit of a recluse. He was the sergeant-major of Urdu poetry.”

On the topic of 21st century Urdu poetry, this is what the artist has to say, “I receive many books on a regular basis. To be honest, I have nothing much to say about them. Yes, Ashfaque Husain’s nazms are worth reading.”

This brings us to the vanished culture of reading books. Surprisingly, Zia Mohyeddin does not agree and has a different take on the complaint.

“The advent of television is one of the reasons. Actually it is more to do with nostalgia. It was always the case. Even in the ‘60s and ‘70s there weren’t many book readers in society. Similarly, the theatre has never been for the people.Ninety per cent of what we rue about the dwindling of reading habits is nostalgia.”

The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from where Mohyeddin himself learnt the art of acting produced acting giants like John Gielgud, Anthony Hopkins and Kenneth Branagh. Should one expect his National Academy of Performing Arts to produce a similar roll-call?

“Yes, we have students who have shown tremendous promise. There is this chap Nazrul Hasan who played the character of Afzal in Nek Parveen. He is very good. He might play the part of Hamlet.”

Speaking of Hamlet, it would not be injudicious to end the tête-à-tête by quoting Hamlet’s piece of advice to a group of actors: “… Do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise.”

The interviewer is a Dawn staffer