Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Re-Directing Theatre: The Training

Dr. Satyabrata Rout

(Copyright reserved)
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Actors learning Indian gestures (Chhau) for the play: Urubhangaml
East-15 Acting School, England
Early Influence:
Post independence Indian theatre has witnessed many experiments, contradiction of thoughts and multiple conceptual ideologies. New genre directors have emerged out of the socio-political and cultural expressions of the community to lead the contemporary theatre. History has witnessed the journey of post-independence Indian theatre movement, which passes through diversified routes to give rise to new forms, new styles and meaning. Interpretation of the thematic presentation of the productions has considerably changed from its textual analysis by the hand of the directors. We have already discussed how Indian theatre suffered a major set back during the colonial period for which it was essential to search and find our own identity in the postcolonial time. The search led us to connect with our tradition, which lost its identity during colonia India. A countrywide movement was started; The Theatre of Roots Movement.  The movement was initiated during the 5th decade, which gained momentum in 70s and 80s of the Twentieth Century. The search resulted in synthesising a kind of theatre, which is Indian from its vary core of nature and springs out of the indigenous culture and social values. The early directors who initiated the roots movement, viz. K.N Panikkar, Habib Tanvir, B.V Karanth, Shiela Bhatia, etc. have creatively linked the intangible lost heritage of the country with modern urban Indian Theatre. Habib Tanvir successfully discovered his theatre expression by going into the root of the culture and adopting the folk and tradition of a particular region, i.e. Chhattisgarh. Not only he explored the folk culture of a particular region to develop his own style of presentation, he gave recognition to a rural based lesser known theatrical form; Nachha. As a part of the early directors of the roots movement, Habib Tanvir has never used the rural forms to create his movements and speeches to express his art form; he moulded his theatre with the spirit of the folk tradition and explored the energy of the folk behaviour into his productions. Thus all his plays remain contemporary, modern and flexible by the power of the rural raw energy. Unlike Habib Tanvir Panikkar’s theatre in Kerala is realised through a completely different source, though both the theatre visionaries are the initiators of “Theatre of Roots movement”.  While Habib Tanvir’s theatre is the product of the amalgamation of urban and rural folk-based culture, Panikkar plunged into the deep ocean of Indian Classical tradition by following the heritage of Kathakali, Kuttiyattam, and Kalaripaitu martial art. The high discipline of Natyashastra tradition remained the source and force of Panikkar’s theatre. At the time when Habib Tanvir was engaged in experimenting on the potential of the folk forms and its application in to modern theatre b with the help of Lokadharmi tradition, almost during the same period of time Panikkar was searching his theatre through Natyadharmi principles. As a Sanskrit scholar, Panikkar reinvented, redefined and restructured the Classical Indian Theatre in the contemporary time by presenting Bhasa, Kalidasa and Bhavavuti in Sanskrit. Panikkar’s production of Sakuntala, Urubhangam, Madhyam-Vyayog, Theyyam-Theyyam, Mudra Rakhyash, etc. are as relevant in the current time as they were thousand years before.
The roots movement took a different turn in 70s with B.V Karanth as a creative director who brought with him the ritualistic and ethnic Natyadharmi tradition of South India by his birth and inherited the flexible improvisational convention of the Lokadharmi tradition of North India by his acquired knowledge of proficiency. The true union of Indian culture took shape with the experiments of B.V Karanth. It happened because of his travelling attitude, which started from his childhood. Anew theatre was born out of the roots movement; The theatre of Hybridity
Developing Training System
While looking into the contemporary situation of Indian theatre in 50s, it became necessary to formulate a kind of training system that systematises the performances. The Sangeet Natak Akademi seminar in 1956 opened windows for discussions on new Indian theatre and to decide its future.
E. Alkazi emphasised on Training by quoting;
“Training should essentially a formative process, with the emphasis on the creativity of the student himself. There is therefore no question of shortcuts, or the imparting of the so-called professional ‘technique’ or ‘tricks of the trade’, or successful ways of playing different types of parts”[1].   
For him theatre training should be institutionalised, not the way Indian ancient Gurukul system of training that is found in the tradition, but an institution, which should be modern in approach and can able to impart a disciplined training on all aspects of theatre; Indian and western. We all know that Classical Indian theatre has a long legacy of rigorous training system, still stands affirm across the time. But the training is one-dimensional focusing on a particular style of presentation. But the modern training system should not be confined to any particular style or form rather exposed to various tricks and trades; as conceived by E. Alkazi in his talk in the SNA seminar in1956. (We have discussed about the origin and functioning of NSD and other training institutions in previous chapter).
Hopefully Parsi Theatre has institutionalised actors’ training through various contemporary means for the first time, but not the way, a modern urban and semi-urban theatre functions. Since Parsi theatre primarily had to depend on dramatic text, it had to emphasise on voice culture, speech delivery, singing ability, and melodramatic presentation by imitating professional European theatre companies. For each faculty, a teacher was deputed to impart training. It was not essential to interpret a Parsi production since the playwright’s text was considered as the final; the presentation was important. Apart from the training of the actors, Parsi theatre introduced stage technique as a major spectacle of the production. These spectacular grandeurs are borrowed from 19th Century English theatre those came to entertain British nobles in colonial India. The set technicians and painters tried to imitate the stage tricks and techniques and adopted them into our Parsi theatre presentations. As a result painted sceneries, cut scenes and stage gimmicks were introduced into the theatre and became an integral part of the productions. The style of playwriting and presentation were decided accordingly. A Parsi actor had to sing and narrate his text loudly to reach a large gathering in front of a painted curtain that serves the locale of the play. This became the style of presentation of Parsi drama; exaggerated and melodramatic portrayal of characters. During scene changing, while the technicians were engaged in putting up new sets by changing the old sceneries, comic interlude scenes and duet songs were enacted to keep the audience entertained and engaged. With all the exaggerations and artificiality, Parsi theatre is credited for formulating a systematic training for actors and technicians. We can find a glimpse of the training and discipline in few of Indian popular theatre culture, like in mobile theatre of Assam, in Surabhi Theatre of Andhra Pradesh and in Jatra tradition of Bengal and Orissa.

Indian Theatre discipline and contemporary Training
It is a mater of fact that a major segment contemporary theatre across the globe is highly influenced by Indian theatre discipline and tradition. To bring out the inner truth of the actor, it became essential to align his physical being, his vocabulary, his mind and soul into a single and focused entity. It has been realised that; the modern actor has lost the method that synchronises his body, mind and soul. The unifies rhythm of these three essential elements of the performer is lost in the midst of industrialisation, urbanisation and socio-political conditions of the world, which is apprehended in the post-war time in the West. With the emergence of various new presentation styles that challenge the realistic acting method of presentation, codified by Constantine Stanislavsky in the beginning of 20th century in West, alternative looking into the world culture became important and essential by the progressive theatre community globally. The training of the actors and the ensuing performances with the help of parallel discipline apart from the method acting became inevitable to envision a new genre theatre; the post-war theatre in the West. The actor’s training through a systematic process proved to be an essential element in contemporary theatre. The actor trainers, the directors and visionaries in the West opened up their windows to look into alternative theatre discipline, which was not there in the Western culture before. Moreover both the wars (1st and 2nd) have almost destroyed the tradition of the West that continued from the period of Greek, Rome and medieval time. The socio-economical and political situations of the country also hold responsibility in bringing out new psychological based theatre culture in Europe in the mid fifties leaving behind the Stanislavsky system of acting, the representational style; the imitation of life. Bertolt Brecht hopefully is the first-ever European theatre director and author who approached for an anti-illusionist acting technique by adopting theatrical elements from Oriental tradition. Brecht’s theatre challenged the western practice in the 2nd half of twentieth century and offered an interesting parallel to Stanislavsky and Meyerhold.  His observation of the style of presentation of the Beijing opera in China and its application into his productions developed into a new theory; The Theory of Alienation, which was completely new to the western theatre before Brecht. Brecht’s theatre has highly influenced a wide range of theatre practitioners, actor-trainers and directors of the contemporary world; Grotowski, Peter Brook, Eugenio Barba, August Boul etc.
The inter-cultural collaboration of theatre training has immersed out of the synthesis of Eastern and Western culture in the recent years. Indian theatre discipline and the treatise of Natyashastra has been analysed with a western sensibility by the scholars of art, literature and performance. The scrupulous and systematic training of actor’s body, voice and mind, which has developed through a series of training process in Natyashastra has been redefined by the scholars of the west. Most of the world famous directors and scholars of theatre looked back to Indian theatre to learn and adopt its long tradition of discipline. What is there in Indian theatre that attracts so many scholars and in which way it influences the world performative culture? The answer itself lies in its genesis. Unlike Western theatre practice, Indian theatre discipline has never been based upon any materialistic ideology. Conceptually Indian theatre believes on ‘performance’, means yagnyan; an offering in the ritualistic activities performed by the actor as well as the audience. The roots can be traced in its tradition; religious, ritualistic and metaphysical by nature. The performative language of Indian theatre cannot be structured in a different perspective living behind its life philosophy, as we know theatre is a derivative term of life itself. Indian theatre embodies life, not the way we usually perceive and interact but the way we feel, experience and interpret in the light of culture and philosophy. This makes Indian theatre-performance abstract, non-representational, metaphorical, symbolic. These essential qualities elevate the performance into an abstract visual poetry. The rigorous training system of Indian theatre creates a kind of discipline that makes the actor live in a state of blissful moment while his inner truth leads the audience to enjoy the rasa (sentiment) and ananda (bliss) through the medium of performance. Irrespective of all the elements of theatre two things becomes significant in the training system; i.e. holding the character and the subsequent release of the rasa (sentiment). In Natyashastra tradition, the process of conceiving a character is completely different from the western method of characterisation, which draws attention of the scholars and researchers time and again. The presence of Patra (Vessel) that holds the charitra (character) makes Indian theatre irreplaceable in the global perspective. The inner reality of the character is reflected in its full spirit and colour through the actor’s stylised movements during the performance. Like a container, the actor’s physical being holds a character and releases it at the time of need of the plot, to continue the performance. This takes place during a state of Satvika (spiritual moment) by combining all the three other abhinayas (acting); Angika (Physical), Vachika (vocal), Aharya (Costumings, etc.). When something is kept in a vessel, the vessel never lost its identity and the object retains its purity.  In the similar method the performer becomes the Patra (container) that contains the inner being of the character without loosing its identity, sanctity and self. The performer’s physical being works as a mould, which shapes the character according to the style of the presentation. While presenting the character, the former never imitates the life in its outer form. Instead of pretending the character, an Indian actor creates a series of abstract images with the help of his physical and vocal training. As Grotowski rightly said;
“ There is enough pretence in life anyway, why add to it by working in the theatre.”[2]
An Indian performer always embodies the essence of life and tries to find a metaphysical behaviour of life in the form of metaphor and symbolic representation, which he realises through abstraction and non-representation. In the process of presentation he never enacts, he performs the enactment. Accordingly the Indian training system has developed. It has developed to prepare the body and voice of the performer to hold the character like a container.
Along with the physical presentation, spiritual disposition is also quite important in the Indian theatre training and practice. To attain the spirituality during the performance and to live in a state of blissful solitude the performer has to strip out his external and peripheral behaviour that clinches him with the outer world. This yogic state of being is essential in the actor’s training process and has been codified in the Indian training system. At the time of concentration the outer world vanishes and ‘self’ comes out in its purest form. Rest of the elements become un-important except the performer and the audience. Grotowski, the Polish director has studied this oriental performative culture and understood the actor’s training process of attaining spirituality. He developed a training that emphasises on the actor’s trans. He called his actor ‘The holy actor’. He emphasised on finding a proper spectator-actor relationship for each type of performance and embodying the decision in physical arrangements. To bring out a system that eliminates everything theatrical, he found possibilities in Chinese, Indian and Japanese theatre. The common phenomenon that separates these theatres from the west is the participation of the audiences as well as the performers in the performance, where both the groups involve in the activity like a ritual. This essentiality of actor-spectator relationship, which forms the backbone of theatre irrespective of its form and culture motivated Grotowski to conceive the idea, that;
“By gradually eliminating whatever proved superfluous, we found that theatre can exist without make-up, without autonomic costume and scenography, without a separate performance area (stage), without lighting and sound effects, etc. It cannot exist without the actor-spectator relationship of perceptual, direct, ‘live’ communication. This is an ancient theoretical truth, of course, but when rigorously tested in practice, it undermines most of our usual ideas of theatre. It challenges the notion of theatre as a synthesis of disparate creative disciplines- literature, sculpture, painting, architecture, lighting, acting[3].”


(Continued...)

N.B: No part of this essay may be reproduced in any form by any means without the permission of the author. 
Dr. Satyabrata Rout; The Author


[1] The training of the actors (Lecture delivered by Alkazi in the drama seminar organized by SNA, Delhi in the year 1956): Indian Drama in retrospect; Edited by J. Kastuar; SNA Hope India Publication, Delhi: Page- 360.
[2] An interview with Mariusz Orski:  Theatre India, May 1999 Issue, NSD publication: page-106.
[3] Towards a Poor Theatre: Jerzy Grotowski; Originally published in Odra no 9, Wroclaw, 1965.