The Theatre of Ratan Thiyam , Chorus Repertory and Actor’s
Training
Essay
written by: Dr. Satyabrata Rout
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Ratan
Thiyam is a man of multi-dimensional personality. At one hand he is an
accomplished writer, poet, dancer, and painter and on other he keeps a strong
political viewpoint and frequently raised his voice for human rights, against
war and sufferings. He has developed a passion to serve people and work for society
through theatre during his NSD days in early seventies. He knew the dreams
could only be realised through a proper organization with a group of performers
who could understand his ideology and execute them with faith and belief. In
the quest of apprehending his vision, he returned back to his hometown at
Imphal, Manipur after graduating from NSD, New Delhi in 1975. He knew it well
that achieving the goal by doing regional theatre is not an easy job; it needs
a life’s struggle.
North-Eastern part of India remains
backward for many reasons. The major population of the frontier belongs to
tribal communities, leaving no space for progressive thoughts. Moreover there was
always turmoil of political fights. But somehow the valley of Manipur is
different from other hilly regions. It has a strong ritualistic vaishnav
tradition that forms its base. During the Gaudiya Vaishnava movements in 18th
century initiated by Sri chaitanya Dev of Navadwip, the Vaishnava culture was
flourished into a highly devotional ritualistic tradition and formulated the
socio-cultural behaviour of Manipuri people. The vaishnav tradition gave rise
to many ritualistic activities, which reflects in art and culture of the
Manipuri society. Shringarika- Bhkti
(devotion through love), being the major component of all the cultures of
Manipur is expressed through various performance traditions. These performance
traditions are directly related to temple culture and Radha-Krishna cult. Pung Cholom and Sankirtan, Rasa-lila,
Laiharaoba, Thang-Ta, Sumanga lila, etc. are some of the traditional performing
art forms, grew in the soil as a cross breed of bhakti and tribal culture. But
with all the strong heritage of culture, rituals and other homogenous activities,
Manipur has politically suffered every time. Unrest and communal rites break
frequently in the land and people suffer attacks from Border countries. In the
midst of these socio-political conditions, Thiyam started struggling for a
progressive art movement in the mid seventies.
To start a career
in theatre in a place where there is no scope for further development, Thiyam
dreamt of connecting this isolated North-East valley with the mainstream
theatre in global perspective. He began motivating youths from various tribes to
theatre. The drama school training helped him to inspire few like-minded
people; Bhogen, Ibomcha, Ibachoba and Ravindra, etc. who came forward initially
to work in his mission. In the beginningThiyam with the help of these local
youths conducted few workshops by adopting realistic method of acting training
for his plays as learnt from the drama school. But soon he understood the
limitation of urban training method in the soil of Manipur. A Manipuri youth is
more exposed to vibrant ritualistic and tribal cultures as a part of cultural
and social heritage. Moreover the urban theatre training could not be easily
adopted by the physical and psychological structures of the native youths; they
have different ecological, geographical and social conditions, who can be more expressive
through the native cultures than an urban training system developed in West.
Immediately Thiyam shifted his perception towards the local indigenous culture
and gradually developed a new theatre training system during the course of
time. Being a student of the legendary director, E. Alkazi, Ratan Thiyam was well
exposed to Western, Greek and Oriental theatre that guided him in developing a
global understanding. He developed a method with the amalgamation of the rooted
tradition of Manipur and contemporary global theatre. While looking Thiyam in
the perspective of another noted director of Manipur, H. Kanhailal, we found
that, both had struggled vividly to achieve regional identity in their theatre
practices. Kanhailal rejected urban training system and developed a discipline,
borrowing elements from the local day-to-day activities, since he found them
more comfortable for his rural actors.
Ratan Thiyam involved gurus and experts from various cultural milieus to impart
physical and vocal training to his actors in order to bring discipline and
order in the physical and vocal system of the actors. He knew that, to express
in his kind of theatre, the actors should develop a discipline of voice and
body.
“In
general the infrastructure of my productions is based on actor’s physical
appearances. The body language is the main tool to carry the expression. For
that my actors work on their body structure, focusing on spine and knee joints.
When the spine and knees of the body system are in a bend position, it
influences the voice significantly. To bring right emotion through voice in
different situations, the actor has to work on his standing and sitting
gestures. It also works in reverse way. Physical gestures and voice culture
work reciprocally in my productions”.
To
execute this idea of shaping the physical structure of the actors, he introduced
Laihui, Lai-haraoba, Pena, Cholom, Pung, Thanh-Ta, Rasa-lila and many tribal
and folk dance forms into his training. The movement and rhythm of these forms
were learnt rigorously from the gurus, without which his actors cannot express.
Since Thiyam believes on the holistic approach of theatre, where each actor has
to express through dance, movement, improvisation, music, chanting, singing,
speech delivery, narrative style, mime, and at the same time interact with
space and visuals, it became essential to go through a painstaking process.
Thiyam used to tell his actors; “These forms are like weapons for a warrior, which
can be applied at the time of need.”
Out of this concept of new genre theatre and innovative
training system, the famous Chorus
Repertory Theatre was born on the 1st April, 1976 at Imphal. A
Manipuri play that instigated Thiyam’s methodology was “Sanarembi Chaisra”, presented by the repertory in 1977. This is
considered as the first play of the repertory and was travelled outside of
Manipur to be performed in Delhi at Sriram Centre. Slowly but steadily, Chorus
Repertory Theatre gained popularity out side the state and was invited in many
theatre festivals. It acquired a small piece of land at the outskirt of Imphal
city and with the help of few actors; Thiyam was engaged in fulfilling his
dream. Though the existing campus of the
repertory was developed gradually by acquiring the land bit by bit in the
course of time, to start with, he constructed few huts and a workspace for his
theatre and training purpose where the actors started dwelling; it became a
residential repertory. During this time, in the early 80’s, Thiyam directed
three plays, Urubhangam, Imphal Imphal
and Karnabharam, in which he
experimented with the Manipuri martial art Thang-ta along with the other
traditional dance forms; Pung cholom, Rasa lila, etc. By that time Chorus had
developed into an institution having a small but exotic campus. Ratan Thiyam
received worldwide recognition as a genius of theatre and Chorus entered in to
the international arena with the production of Chakravyuha in 1984. Making of Chakravyuha
was the turning point of Thiyam’s career. It was prepared under the Sangeet
Natak Akademi’s young directors’ scheme to promote young theatre practitioners
of the country as a part of Theatre of Roots movement, initiated by Dr. Suresh
Awasthi, the founder chairman of Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi. Chakravyuha, not only brought name and
fame to Thiyam and his Chorus Repertory in the country, it bagged the most
prestigious award “The Grand Fringe Award” at the Edinburg Theatre Festival in
1987. The play succeeded in setting a trend of twentieth century Indian theatre
in global arena. Michael Coveney, the renowned UK based theatre critic and
author writes in Financial Times, London about Chakravyuha’s histrionic presentation at Fringe Festival.
“I have not yet seen Peter Brook’s acclaimed epic
staging of the Mahabharata, which begins its farewell world tour in Zurich this
Saturday, but this remarkable Indian company from the Manipur valley in the
North East of the continent has all the excitement, vigour and narrative
simplicity of a Bruce Lee film or the more recent Golden Child...
...There are battles, processions, and banner waving
soldiers, undulating military choreography, thrilling exhibition of martial
arts. The music is exquisite, played from the wings on cymbals, drums, gongs,
and a celeste. Now this really some thing worthy of a great international
festival...”
After the grand success of the play at Edinburg Theatre festival,
invitations flung in to present the play at numerous theatre festivals over the
world. The repertory became a touring company, performed in more than hundred
theatre festivals across the globe. It travelled in entire Europe, USA, Latin
American countries and the Eastern world, which include, Japan, China, Chorea,
Thiland, Austrelia, etc. All the succeeding productions of Chakravyuha;
Andhayug, Urubhangam, Uttar Priyadarshi, Ritusamgharam, Nine hills One Valley,
Prologue, When We Dead Awaken, King of Dark Chamber, etc. grabbed immediate
attention and received international invitations to participate in numerous
festivals and occasions across the globe.
Chakravyuha placed Chorus
Repertory Theatre in the forefront of the tradition. Under the guidance of
Thiyam, Chorus developed a particularly rich form of theatre, combining modern
dramatic techniques with the enormous variety of traditional styles of the
valley. It drew on and fused these styles to arrive into a dramatic spectacle, combining
dance, drama, mime, martial arts and ancient rituals. With all these creative
inputs to the repertory company, Thiyam also started expecting the same high-level
commitment from his actors. They are supposed to live in the campus and work
professionally with dedication to develop a work-culture. To make their ends
meet the actors adopted some other vocations, like; diary, fishery and poultry
in the campus and engaged round the year in researching a particular training
system, which becomes a part of their regular curriculum. To achieve the
desired expression as per the demand of the production suit to Thiyam’s
imagination, the actors have to work on their self; physical, oral and
intellectual level, even more than a year prior to the productions. This total
understanding of the traditional forms, central to their work, forms the base
to develop a new approach on training method, a hybrid of old and new
techniques. Stylization being the prime mode of Thiyam’s expression brought
many skills and craft to the training system. Its reflection from text to
performance is felt in every smallest components of his creation. The actors
has to emphasize simple oral effect by physically thrusting
the words, in which their entire body is involved to create the meaning. This
physical portrayal is a distinctive feature of Ratan Thiyam's style. The
actor's body moves in internal and external rhythm to the performance text. Thiyam
works on varied breathing techniques to create a distinctive language of
expression for each character. We
can perceive all the techniques in his productions. Lets take Macbeth as an
example to understand his techniques. Each character in this production stands
and walks with bending knees as if clinching to the earth. The movements are
derived after a keen observation of the tribal communities and their day today
behaviours; their regular habits of climbing trees, swimming the river, walking
on the landscapes, etc. The steady, slow and controlled movements and gestures
of the characters in the play generate a definite sound and oral pattern for
the actors and generates excitement and interest in viewing the show. At the
same time it also projects the inner psychological condition of the characters,
passing through in different situations of the play. This kind of performance
allows the audience to comprehend the conflict and tension of the characters
that penetrates in their mind slowly and gradually. The controlled movements of
the actors with the help of their spine and knees position and projection of the
voices from various resonators derived from their gestures and postures make
Thiyam’s productions different from the general trend of contemporary Indian
theatre practices. This innovative discipline
of performance practice, spectacular aural and visual aesthetic, and potent
thematic explorations, placed him in the company of Tadashi Suzuki, Peter
Brook, and Jerzy Grotowski.
Apart from developing a systematic training system
for his actors, Thiyam also gave equal importance on the technical aspects of
theatre. As it was made clear from the beginning, Thiyam’s theatre is an
amalgamation of acting and design where equal emphasis is given to both the
components; stagecraft was introduced as an integral part of the training to
the actors. His actors not only became trained in acting, they had to learn
weaving, tailoring, knitting, carpentry, cane-craft, papier-mâché work, plaster
of Paris and clay moulding, Fibre glass work, scene painting, etc. in order to
create a holistic theatre atmosphere.
The actors prepare sets, masks, props and anything related to
performances as a part of their responsibility and professional endeavour. As
the noted columnist Kavita Nagpal points out;
“The
actors of the Chorus Repertory craft and create their own props thus establishing
an intimate relationship and making them indivisible parts of the character
they are portraying.”
In the year 2002 Chorus Repertory added another wings to its repertory
at the outset of its silver jubilee celebration. It was the Shrine Theatre, a 200 capacity
auditorium with all modern technical facilities. The architectural beauty of
this intimate theatre is drawn from the Buddhist architecture of Thailand,
designed by him.
Over the years Chorus Repertory grew into an
international centre for theatre and performance studies and attracted people
from across the globe. Scholars, practitioners and intellectuals started pouring
in to the campus, which resulted in developing a global dialogue on
contemporary theatre practices. Peter Brook, Eugeneo Barba, Richard Schechner,
Tadashi Suzuki, Grotowski, and many international theatre personalities at
Chorus brought with them an air of new theatre sensibility and Chorus Repertory
Theatre could able to find an important space in the arena of world theatre.
Ratan Thiyam became the ambassador of Indian contemporary theatre practices. His own words depict his personality as once
in a casual mood he told me laughingly;
“I am a big man; my dreams are
bigger than me”.
(This
essay is under copyright act. No part is permitted to be copied or produced in
any form.
The essay
is only for reading purpose)
(Note: The essay is an excerpt from my D.Lit
thesis on “Dialectics of New Direction”)
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Dr. Satyabrata Rout- Associate
Professor, Dept. of Theatre Arts, University of Hyderabad, India
Reference materials
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Elaborate
discussion on Kanhailal’s training system is in the net blog.
