Re: Passions Goes Bollywood day time soap
Daytime soap’s Bollywood Passions
Soap opera puts on some Indian finery for a flashy show-stopping dream sequence
Jan. 27, 2006. 07:27 AM
SURYA BHATTACHARYA
TORONTO START STAFF REPORTER
Passions, an NBC daytime soap, will air a seven-minute Bollywood style song-and-dance sequence today.
“They’ve never incorporated something like this before,” said choreographer Nakul Dev Mahajan of the song and dance.
The fans are "used to us going off in quirky directions, " said Jeanne Haney, senior co-ordinating producer of Passions. "Every year we do something that’s off the charts for soap operas.
“A lot of fans don’t know what it (Bollywood) is. But I’m sure they’ll love it when they see it.”
In 2003 the show did a musical extravaganza based on the movie Chicago.
James E. Reilly, Passions’ creator and head writer, who is said to be a fan of both Bollywood dance numbers and spectacles, wrote the elaborate dream sequence in which the dance features.
It revolves around one of the main characters, Ethan Winthrop (Eric Martsolf), who is being transfered to his company’s headquarters in New Delhi, India, and his wife Gwen Winthrop (Liza Huber, daughter of Susan Lucci), who fantasizes about getting away from Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald Crane (Lindsay Hartley), who wants Ethan to herself in spite of being married to a man who’s in a coma.
In the episode, Gwen dreams of getting remarried Bollywood-style, only to be rudely interrupted by Theresa, which leads to a dance-off among the three characters.
Mahajan, who heads his own dance company, brought 20 of his dancers to the set. He watched several Bollywood movies, including Bride and Prejudice, with the shows’ creative team so they could understand how these dance sequences work.
American movies don’t usually include Bollywood elements like the saturation of colour in costumes and backdrops, so the producers of the show sourced all their information, starting with hiring Mahajan out of Artesia, a city also known as Little India in California.
Filming of the dance sequence took 12 hours, although pre-production for the episode lasted six weeks.
In that time, costume designer Diana Eden oversaw costumes being sewn and embroidered in India.
“They’re the most expensive pair of pyjamas I’ve worn in my life,” said Martsolf.
He wore the pyjamas with an embroidered white kurta extending down to his knees, along with a red tie-dye scarf around his neck.
And Mahajan dressed his background dancers in pastels to contrast the vivid blues, oranges and pinks worn by the two feuding women.
Unlike Bollywood actors who lip-sync when serenading each other, both Martsolf and Hartley added their vocals to parts of the song sung in English.
Both actors have musical theatre backgrounds (Martsolf toured as Pharaoh in the Osmond production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Hartley has been a headlining singer in Vegas). The backup vocals are sung in both Hindi and English.
Haney hopes this will introduce a new genre to Passions fans.
The show, which is now in its seventh season, is the second most popular daytime soap opera among 18- to 34-year-old women in the U.S.
*Passions *airs at 2 p.m. on NBC.