Anita Majumdar
Anita Unveiled

By Christopher DiRaddo

This past February, Anita Majumdar got together with six of her former NTS classmates to watch the CBC Television premiere of Murder Unveiled, a true-life tragic love story in which she starred as Davinder, an Indo-Canadian girl who falls in love with someone of whom her family does not approve. The story had captured the hearts of Canadians and they were watching, coast to coast, as Majumdar brought back to life this girl who was brutally murdered at such a young age.“

Anita Majumdar and Andrew Scorer in Guillermo Verdecchia’s bloom, directed by Soheil Parsa, presented by the Modern Times Stage Company at Toronto’s Theatre Centre in February-March 2006. © Guy Bertrand

“In order to get new audiences, you need new stories that, when you really look at it, are not new stories at all, but are just told in a new way.”

“It was really bizarre,” says Majumdar. “I had seen the movie many times before and I didn’t think it was going to be all that different… The idea that the nation was watching the movie really hit.”

Majumdar does not know what to make of all the attention she has been getting since graduating from the School in 2004. In addition to Murder Unveiled (for which she won the Best Female Actor Award at the Asian Festival of First Films in Singapore), Majumdar recently starred in Cahoot’s production of Anosh Irani’s Bombay Black in January, and her own creation, Fish Eyes, has been burning up the stages of Toronto since it was first premiered in 2004.

“Fish Eyes is definitely the most surreal thing that’s occurred since graduation,” says Majumdar, who first began to create the show while at the NTS, presenting a version of it to teachers and classmates. “I thought it would be a nice introduction to Toronto and end there, but it keeps going and going.”

Written and performed by Majumdar, Fish Eyes tells the story of Meena, an angst-ridden, exceptional Indian-dancing teenager who would trade it all in for the chance to be just a “normal” high school girl. Majumdar plays both Meena and Kalyani Aunty, her spunky, pro-India dance teacher who reminds Meena of the importance of embracing her origins and talents.

“It was exciting to see hordes of people who usually don’t go to the theatre packing in to see the play,” says Majumdar of the number of South Asian people who came to see her show, talking to her afterwards about how much they enjoyed her characters.

What became evident to Majumdar is how there was a real hunger in the South Asian community for these types of stories. “They need a reason to go to the theatre and no one is inviting them,” she says. “In order to get new audiences, you need new stories that, when you really look at it, are not new stories at all, but are just told in a new way.”

While attending the School, Majumdar was very conscious that she was never typecast in the roles that she got. “Sherry (Bie) never typecast me, never made me a nurse or a maid. At NTS, I felt that I was more than what people saw me as,” says Majumdar. “I thought, when I get out there, that’s not going to be a reality and I am going to have to play a 7-11 clerk, but when I got out of school I didn’t find that at all.”

Majumdar feels the roles she has received since graduation have truly been great. With three major parts in a little over a year that draw on her cultural origins and Indian-dance, Majumdar is not worried about being typecast.

“In a way I consider myself lucky that I am being typecast as something,” she says. “People may know me for (Indian) dance but they are still very aware of my work which is great… I don’t have a problem playing my race, but it has to be dignified and true to the character and not just about the race.”

At the time of this interview, Majumdar was preparing for her starring role in Guillermo Verdecchia’s bloom, playing at Toronto’s Theatre Centre. In it, she is being cast against type, playing a war orphan who can’t remember anything from his/her past. “I think that bloom is going to end the expectation that ‘Anita will be doing dance in her next play as usual.’ It’s really going to set it off. No dance. I’m not even playing South Asian.”

Majumdar is already writing her next play and feels that her greatest asset is being able to create work for herself. When asked if there was a dream role she would like to play, she says that she’ll know it when she sees it but, “I might have to come to terms with the fact that I may be writing it.”

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