Hooray for Bollywood . . .
Uh, what’s Bollywood?
Before the Tuesday opening of Bombay Dreams in the Palace Theatre, an explanation might be in order.
The name of the prolific Indian film industry combines Bombay and Hollywood.
‘‘Bollywood started with the poorest of the poor watching movies in tents in India," said Baayork Lee, the director of Bombay Dreams.
‘‘Just like American audiences fantasized to escape their harsh reality during the Depression by going to the movies, people dream their dreams through Bollywood films in India."
Bombay Dreams, the first Broadway musical in the Bollywood genre, is set in modern Bombay, or Mumbai — and offers a rags-to-riches saga about a poor Indian man who dreams of becoming a star.
‘‘In Bollywood movies," Lee said, "they have a cast of thousands dancing behind the star in colorful costumes, and we’re trying for the same formula.
‘‘When the hero starts singing, everyone starts dancing behind him like the big choruses of our old American musicals — except we’ve quadrupled it."
Imitating the films, Bombay Dreams features stock characters and colorful images within a mix of music, melodrama and romantic comedy.
‘‘Every Bollywood film has a grieving mother; a love story; and what they call a hero, a heroine and a villain," said Deep Katdare, who plays the villain.
The Indian-American actor — who visited central Ohio in 2001 to shoot Green Card Fever, a southern Asian film — was pleased to tackle his first Indian stage role after playing an Indian on television (Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Over There).
Katdare, 35, is reprising his Broadway part as Vikram Sharma.
"He’s the guy who gets to be bad, as a lawyer trying to raze the slum and displace all the people."
The show also pokes fun at other Bollywood cliches: Any character suddenly breaks into song, the women frequently change costumes, and a romantic scene jumps from a city to a mountaintop.
Sachin Bhatt plays Akaash, a slum dweller from the untouchable caste who dreams of becoming a Bollywood hero.
"He wants to be this big star," said Bhatt, who has relatives in the Columbus area.
The character pays a price when he attains fame, sacrificing his relationships and integrity.
Yet, in keeping with the Bollywood formula, the ending must be happy: The reformed hero gets the girl.
Bhatt — who grew up in St. Louis, with his parents from India — laughs at the trappings of the genre.
Still, he said, Bombay Dreams "is a great opportunity to be in a show with my culture."
The musical incorporates jazz, hip-hop and many types of Indian dancing, including filmi — the term for the fusion style of Bollywood movies.
"Indian dancing is energizing, primitive, vibrant, colorful, passionate and very alive," said choreographer Lisa Stevens, a Canada native who has Indian parents.
"It makes you want to move."
She helped stage Bombay Dreams in London and New York, where she served as associate choreographer and dance captain for British choreographer Anthony van Laast.
The musical ran for about two years in London, buoyed by the support of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
The Phantom of the Opera composer became a coproducer after developing an interest in the cross-cultural music of A.R. Rahman, an Indian composer who has sold more than 100 million albums, including his Lagaan score, worldwide.
"Partly because of the huge population of Indians in London," Stevens said, "Andrew Lloyd Webber had the idea for a long time for a Bollywood love story that would work well with Rahman’s music."
The Broadway show, which opened to mixed reviews in 2004, was revised to make the story more accessible to American audiences. It was reconceived again for the recently launched tour, with Columbus the third stop.
Reviews from Costa Mesa, Calif. — the first stop — were mixed as well.
"The new staging . . . works best when the music is thumping," a Los Angeles Times critic wrote. "When the movement stops, however, the show dies."
Meanwhile, an alternativeweekly review praised the show for its "exoticism and romanticism all in one well-crafted package."
Lee and Stevens seek to put audiences in the mood even before the curtain rises.
"When people walk into the theater," Lee said, "they will feel as if they’re in the midst of an Indian movie set where a Bollywood musical is being made."
Best-known as the original Connie on Broadway in A Chorus Line, she evolved from a dancer-actress into a director with credits such as tours of Jesus Christ Superstar, The King and I and Porgy and Bess.
Stevens restaged the Bombay Dreams dances from scratch, adding new numbers while deleting two.
"You can’t get too traditional, because it won’t land properly," she said. "So doing a version of traditional Indian dancing mixed with commercial jazz and stylized movements creates something pleasing to the eye for American audiences.
"Our goal is for people to leave feeling uplifted."
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