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.
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| 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.
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