Prageet – natural born actor

Hailing from Wales, and now alive and well and living in Devon, Prageet became a sannyasin (in 1976) in, he says, a ‘suicide or sannyas’ situation. He had only recently discovered his natural acting talents when he unthinkingly signed up for Drama at the college where he was studying to be a teacher, but acting alone was not enough and suicide was on the cards. Determined sannyasin friends pushed him protesting into a room where a Nadabrahma meditation and a taped Osho discourse was about to start – and the rest, as we say, is history. Sannyas followed immediately and the sannyasin community was gifted with the talents of this natural born actor.

Two years after taking sannyas Prageet went to Poona and was part of the first Theatre Group which consisted of himself, Jayananda and Padmasambhava – with a red plastic nose as their sole prop. He did various other acting related things but it was when the School of Creative Arts started in 1988 that he ‘started to fly’.

(I was director of Creative Arts at the time and, caught as I often was between commune politics and artistic egos, life was often ludicrously difficult. But over and over again the day was saved when Prageet walked into my office and proceeded to act out these silly situations for me with such humour and insight that I would be falling off my chair with laughter and the woes disappeared as if by magic.)

This was a very creative time for Prageet. Not only was he acting and directing but he started running very successful Theatre Groups, at times teaming up with Amiyo who was doing dance and Gurdjieff Sacred Dance groups. After Osho died he travelled around Europe with her doing these groups and also went off to Japan to do some ‘acting with no words’ workshops – a very ‘different’ experience was his cautious comment!

Prageet is one of the best known and best loved sannyasin actors, because of his theatre workshops as well as his performances and the shows he has directed.

In the late 90’s he became a teacher of drama and geography at Ko Hsuan School and will be forever remembered for the amazing performances he drew out of those kids. Nothing short of brilliant. When Ko Hsuan unfortunately had to close about five years ago, he took on a job in Exeter in a ‘secure unit’ for kids with very challenging behavioural difficulties. He says it was his sense of humour and theatrical skills which got him through some pretty scary and very threatening situations there.

Last year, however, a combination of events led to a ‘moving on’. I was sharing the house with him at the time and it seemed to me that existence was saying ‘enough of this security. Theatre is where it is at for you, mate, and it is time to get back to that. Never mind the insecurity!’ (He had definitely enjoyed the novelty of a fixed, very adequate salary and PAID holidays (!) for those few years.)

Rather flush for the time being, he took off for the USA to visit some good sannyasin friends there and then went on to Poona.

This year he is re-establishing himself in Devon and is reconnecting with his natural born theatre talents, working with ‘Actor Factor’ in Exeter and Truro and doing some volunteer theatre groups with an organisation called ‘Amber’ which is dedicated to helping young adults returning to society. He has recently returned from Bilbao in Spain where he ran a Theatre Workshop – and has two more planned in Madrid and Barcelona. Next month he rejoins Amiyo in Dharmsala in India to help her with an Intensive Gurdjieff Sacred Dance group which she runs there twice a year. As he is already half way to the USA he will continue on to visit friends and then return to Devon beginning of December.

After that, question marks abound – but the unknown is the essence of acting and there is no doubt that theatrical opportunities in one form or another will be immediately zooming directly at him.

Text and photo by Veena – August 2006 / updated April 2007