IS THEATRE GETTING STAGE FRIGHT?

 

 

All the world’s a stage… but the world was shrinking too on last count, wasn’t it? The idiot box is counting on its ‘stars’, the world wide web has netted everything under the sun and entertainment is increasingly gaining ground in the ‘reality’ galaxy… While the Great Indian Drama unfolds around us, is the marquee hosting the final act anytime soon?

While the best of (aspiring) world theatre landed in the capital at the invitation of NSD’s (National School of Drama) Bharat Rang Mahotsav 2007 earlier in January, things seem far from hunky-dory for the Indian theatre. While the purists couldn’t quite seem to explain the emphasis on dance-theatre, they are worrying themselves harsh with suggestions of theatre going the extreme-elitist way, hinting at insufficient patronage to regional plays. But, the story of theatre isn’t making sounds of a tragic ending yet, not as long as good story-telling remains at its foundation just as it continues to be for other successful performing arts like Indian classical music and dance. Fine specimens of gruelling rehearsals, fine acting, no retakes and absolute passion, theatre is that niche, yet addictive, art form that has them all coming back all the time. Says veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah, “It gives me that chance to test myself against some of the best scripts and pacifies the yearning to make contact with my audience.”

The modern theatre that one witnesses today has come a long way from Natyashastra, one of the oldest words written on stage craft. The progression is marked clearly – like a reluctant Indian undergoing identity crisis to the assertive neo-Indian who is anything but oblivious to his true worth. Much of our ancient plays were derived from the Indian epics, and later with the colonists in the country, the British influence could not have remained outside the mise-en-scene of theatre for long. In the 80s, Geoffrey Kendal on his tour of India with his ‘Shakespereana’ troupe, playing the Bard’s works along with other contemporary English plays, met Prithviraj Kapoor’s Prithvi Theatre and thus was established one of the solacing mainstays of Indian theatre – Prithvi.

Regional or English, theatre scene in India can’t of course be discounted of its flashes of genius. Creative genius Alyque Padmasee brought up on theatre, thanks to his brother Bobby Padamsee’s Theatre Group, confesses to having resorted to ads for the money. The man behind Evita, director of over 70 plays says, “Theatre as far as talent is concerned is excellent but faces a grim plight with finances; unless the government gives grants to theatre productions, theatre will die. We, from this world, are paid nothing for our efforts while Bollywood is swimming in money.” Girish Karnad, Kannada theatre’s gift to the marquee drew the spotlight to the treasure of talent reposed with regional art works, with his endeavours linking what the others called escapist to flesh and blood art. Success of plays like Yayati and Naga-Mandala implied that adaptations were not the be-all, end-all of theatre. It sure was heartening to witness his Tughlaq, which carried forward the legacy of immortal classics like Rabindranath’s Red Oleanders (Rakta-Karavi), draw resounding applause and not just those adapted from Miller or Tennessee Williams’ original works… As the country of our dreams takes shape and wing, our league of extraordinary playwrights and theatre directors have also begun to make name as great carriers of Indian illustrations, albeit the stats wouldn’t have satisfied the number crunchers. Reminisces actor Vinay Pathak “I remember being the only Indian in the crew travelling across America to give them a piece of India, with Vijay Tendulkar’s Silence: The court is in session. Claiming to come back to theatre ‘to refresh the basics every now and then’, he testifies to the fact of a symbiotic relationship between theatre and cinema, however much some may crib of theatre’s brain draining away into the latter. But losing the battle to their more glamorous counterpart is not something theatre followers feel totally threatened by. Cinema owes a lot to theatre, right from the foundation to the fine actors to the polished styles of acting but not a year passes when an industry bigwig does not return to his/her professed first love, be it a Shabana Azmi or a Boman Irani. In the state-of-the-art state of affairs, it would be expected to match the expectations of a great product complete with glossy packaging, or else theatre runs the risk of being mistaken for as deprived as the issues that it chooses to perform these days, with social messages mostly being the agenda of theatre-goers and doers now.

Theatre, but, isn’t just a crash course on morals, it has entertainment as the core foundation and the success of the Ramlila to date, replete with the whistles and loud claps, explains it. Says the legend behind The Legend Of Ram, Aamir Raza Hussain, “Unless theatre is not based on pure entertainment, it will lose its ability to gather an audience and therefore lose its potential for growth”.

Adapting – not just adaptation – would help too. Actor Saurabh Shukla seconds it, “With globalisation sweeping through, there is hardly anything which is distinctively Indian, British or American, the essential effort lies in the unique expression of telling a story that is felt or seen closely”. Indigenous or international, theatre will never be allowed to succumb to the onslaught of the avant-garde arts for as Alyque wraps it for us, “If theatre dies then Shakespeare, Tagore and Kalidasa also die”… And that isn’t something we’d sit back about…