Why
I call it Anti-theatre
Satyabrata Rout
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Indian theatre has been
radically revolutionized in the recent years. This revolution is welcomed, not for
the cause of destruction but for the constructive mindset and for
socio-cultural up-liftment. A revolution of this kind was necessary to set another
vision and rectification in the age old system. But unfortunately the change
swept away our people’s theatre to an unseen danger. Anything and everything is
proved to be right in the name of experiment and postmodernism. Nowhere
in the world except India has cornered its culture and tradition in the context
of postmodern. Rather the very concept of the term ‘postmodern’ stands
on the strong foundation of modernity which is scientific, logical and
rational. It can’t be completely free from its parental form, it can’t surpass
it fully rather can make modernity its root on which it grows. As Nick Kaye in
his book “Postmodernism and performance” indicated; “In this case,
postmodern can’t be said to be properly free of the modern. For the modern it
is the ground on which the postmodern stands, a ground with which it is in
dispute and on which it is able to enter into dispute with itself.” No
concept in ‘Art’ is born to destroy its parental structure rather use
its potentiality and strength with new outlook. Postmodern is also not an
exception. We can’t destroy the old culture in the name of new-culture. We
can’t wipe out tradition to establish something radical by giving an excuse of postmodernism.
In these recent years
we are taking a departure from the tradition by saying proudly that we don’t need
any tradition to express our art. By saying this, deliberately we are imposing another
tradition, because anything that is practiced for years develops into a
tradition. And this new-tradition which we are establishing will
definite going to be baseless and rootless. By projecting ourselves ‘postmodernist-
in this sense’, we are clearly taking an exit from the society and from those elements
which flourished in the society; art, literature and culture. In this
way we are also departing from “People’s Theatre” and establishing a new
one which I call “The Anti-Theatre”.
In India the trend of
practicing anti-theatre is growing mindlessly day by day. It has been
nourished by those few hands those have nothing to do with the society, culture
and tradition. Even they don’t have any moral and emotional tie-up with the
time and space in which they live. From the very beginning of the civilization
theatre has served our society in many ways. It has the power to bind and
motivate people for cause and awareness. It remained as the most powerful
communicative medium. Theatre has nourished and flourished within the society
by the people and for the people. History witnesses, whenever and wherever
theatre tries to alienate itself from the people, it surely met its end. Our
country is passing through this ordeal of theatre in these few years. It is going
away from the common people to become the slave in the hand of a few elite-intellectuals,
who never associate themselves with the common mass so as their art. They
become responsible for the death of theatre and the promoter of Anti-theatre.
Let’s have a look to
the recent theatre academic activities in the institutions and Universities. We
all know that theatre training remained different than other academic subjects.
It is a topic which founds its completion in practice only. All the studies,
research and academic activities are to be channelized to theatre practice;
which means presenting the art in front of the audience on a stage. In
Natyashastra this presentation was related to the actor’s body, voice and
intellect which in Sanskrit is termed as “Shariranubhuti” (Experience through
body); means learning through experience and this is considered as the best
learning process in the parameter of education. In the ancient schooling system
a guru or guide was deputed to lead the students to go through their personal
experiences and this type of training is always essential in a practical medium
like theatre. But unfortunately our theatre academic system in those few hands (the self-styled
elite-intellectuals) are becoming more research oriented than practice
oriented. The conventional class room teaching method is substituted by assignment
programmes and panel discussion curriculum. These new waves of teaching
programmes may have their own positive motivations. With the help of new
communications (computer, internet, multimedia etc.) we could do wonders. But
unfortunately the students are taking wrong advantage of these gazettes. They
are undoubtedly gathering lots of information from these sources but with lack of
knowledge and understanding and think themselves knowledgeable and educated! The
teachers in those institutions and departments feel themselves more elite and
intellectuals. They misinterpret information into knowledge. They should know
that knowledge comes out of experience where as information not. In this way
our artistes, those who are working continuously in the field are more
knowledgeable than these armed-chair-academicians because they have practical
experiences with them. But unfortunately this handful of teachers and their
followers are thinking them superior and moulded everything accordingly. They
think they are the only visionaries who have been deputed to think, visualize
and decide the future of Indian theatre. They want everyone to think
accordingly, to feel according to them and to see only through their eyes. And
if someone thinks and does differently he has no space in this new-wave culture
and becomes outcaste. Because these people by their power of intellectual
cunningness have moulded the political power with them and through other
compromising means are occupying the highest positions in the social hierarchy
and leading Indian arts and theatre, the common people’s voice is been smeared
out.
As I discussed, these
fewer people for which our popular theatre is suffering in these years has
nothing to do with art, culture and tradition. They have no emotional link with
the society and social activities. I am sure they might not know the basic
grammar of the art form which they are practicing. Without the fundamental
understanding of the form how one could establish a new one? Whatever he will
create will become alien to others and that is the only reason why their art
remained alienated to the rest of the society. Even sometimes this kind of
theatre arts, which we are encountering in these years in big cities like
Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore, need an explanation to clarify the interpretation
and the purpose of doing the play. Shamelessly these intellectuals have taken
the liberty to include a post production session as a part of the play
where they make others fool by imposing their vague ideas and concept of making
this play. The objectivity of theatre is now confined to the subjective
approach of an individual’s ideology. Hopefully some basic factors are
responsible for this anti-theatre practice.
1.
Lack of basic understanding of tradition
2.
The egocentric approach
3.
Releasing personal frustrations
4.
projecting one’s intellectual idealism
5.
Confusion of life and understanding.
As I discussed, our self styled visionaries has
nothing to do with India, its tradition and culture. They definitely have neither
experienced human sufferings nor tragedies nor have they seen life in the nook
and corner of the country. They live in the urban cities and have never
experienced poverty. Then how in their arts, the common life reflects? This
lack of life experience led them to practice something unusual which seems
alien to most of us. Every Indian production in the name of postmodern
seems to be satisfying one’s personal ego. By projecting something unusual
which remained beyond understanding (sometimes even to the person who creates
it-the director), we feel ourselves special in the crowd. But we should be
aware of the fact that art with ego centric complex show the way to disaster
and destruction which will surely lead to mass revolution one day. We have no
right to feel others inferior in front of us. Sometimes our personal frustrations
come in to our work which makes us slave in our creation. This process of
making the art is growing day by day in the cosmopolitan cities. The region is
obvious. Our social life is being segregated into smaller compartments.
Machinery interactions are dominating over live interactions. We closed
ourselves in a tiny chamber both physically and mentally. Obviously our
frustration will be reflected in our art since art reflects our own
personality. Involvement of machineries, multiple splitting space and
personality of character, random and mindless use of modern electronic gazettes
and deliberate breaking of the special and temporal rhythm of the production in
the name of postmodernism is nothing but the outcome of our personal
frustration. It only creates a form without soul. Off course these above
factors are the fundamentals of postmodern performance but it shouldn’t be imitated
mindlessly in our country. Every ideology is the product of the
socio-economical-climatic conditions of the reason. Can one explain why realism
and abstract-realism developed and flourished in Europe and not in India or in
any Asian countries? The answer is simple. It is the temperament of our society
where there is no space for this hardcore concept. The foundation of Indian art
was based on the metaphorical ideology of life where everything moves in circle
like life moves in rotation; one follows the other...! Theatre is not an
exception which couldn’t accept the concept of realism so as our people.
Similarly this new-theatre will not be accepted until it merge into
Indian temperament and till then it will remain isolated and will be criticised
irrespective of its propagation by the mighty hands.
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Dr. Satyabrata
Rout/Associate Professor; Dept. Of Theatre Arts, University of Hyderabad/India
