How Real Should Theatre Be?
I recently went to the renown Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai which is run by one of India’s oldest film-family, the Kapoors. The theatre is maintained in the memory of Prithviraj Kapoor, a pioneer of Indian theatre and films. Five generations of his family have been associated with the Indian film industry including the latest Bollywood Hearthrobs- Kareena Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor.
The play was part-narration, part-enactment of a controversial 1970s play on censorship in theatre. The acting was powerful and there was an unusual mix of several mediums- cinema via film clips that came up at appropriate points on a screen overhead, ‘lavani’- a traditional, seductive Marathi Folk Dance, and the theatre act itself. The play was mostly in Hindi with a small sprinkling of English and Marathi.
Based on my very amateur, personal experiences of watching theatre, there are a few things that spring to my mind when I’m watching a play in India. Firstly, it is the props and lighting. When I watched my first few shows at the West End, I was mesmerized by the lights, the background, the clever way in which the stage got transformed, the quality of the sound, the beautiful interiors and the large size of the theatre halls. It always took me a while to focus on the artistes and the play itself.
Since then, I’ve watched several excellent dramas and musicals at the West End, and sometimes the better ones were those where the stage was bare and the ‘extra effects’ minimal. That’s when you got to focus on the actors without any distraction and they had to be really good to get your attention and keep it. But one of my favourite plays was not a West End one. It was a £5- ticket-play performed at the back of a local pub in South East London. The stage was just the floor, the seating consisted of rickety chairs in this cramped and dark room. There were three artistes and about 5 props including a kid's rubber dinghy. They acted magnificently- much better than anything I had ever seen at the West End !
In India, from what I gather from my amateur research, as cinema grew in popularity, theatre got pushed to the back when it came to financial investments. So I haven't seen any theatre houses with fancy stages at multiple levels, sliding walls, high-end lighting and sound effects. But I always find the artistes to be extremely passionate, versatile, eager to act out hard-hitting social issues, or doing a good parody of the eccentricities of the Indian way of life. It all feels very ‘real’ especially when they use a local language like Hindi.
And this brings me to the 2nd point- how ‘real’ should an act be? I speak here of the modern times only, say from the last decade onwards. The play I saw recently depicted household violence- a man hitting a woman and also later on a woman hitting a man. Very refreshing that 2nd bit! And it was also a point of severe controversy in the original 70s version. To add to it they showed the woman's character drinking booze on stage which led to a big ruckus at that time.
However, in the version I saw this weekend, the hits, kicks, pushes and falls (and there were quite a few) were very intense and very real. I was about 50 metres from the stage and I saw and heard the thuds of falling bodies. I saw the kicks too- legs making contact with the other actor’s abdomen. The grabbing of hair and pushing was very real too. Enough to make the audience in the front gasp.
I tried to remember if it had always been like that. But in my pre-West End phase I had never seen a play depicting too much violence so I can’t compare. At one point in the current play an actor picked up a large earthen pot and flung it at the far end of stage, well-away from the audience side, where it broke into a thousand pieces. At another point the man was to strangulate a woman on stage and after the scene I was staring at the woman to see if she would get up or not! Now all these scenes were extremely relevant to the play and the raw emotions/ actions did make everyone wince and 'feel the pain', which was probably the purpose of these acts. It’s also clear that the artistes, both men and women, were doing this very willingly for their art.
But in my head, specifically in my exposed-to-the-West-side' part of the brain, there were a mix of thoughts like:
‘ Oooh what about Health and Safety of the artistes??’
‘ What if the women got bruises on their bodies? They have a couple more days of the show. Although the sari covers them well.’
‘ What if the woman, who was seriously kicking the guy who was lying rolled up on the floor, hit him the wrong place!’
‘What if the guy put a few fingers at the wrong place by mistake while doing the strangulation scene with such intensity?
‘What if the ‘matka’ or earthen pot splinters flew up to hit the artistes or the audience as the stage is really small?
Yes it sounds crazy. But I can totally see why this would never have been enacted the same way on Broadway or the West End. For one, the white Caucasian bodies (is it correct to use the word 'Caucasian' now-a-days?) bruise too easily and turn blue and black!!
Still, I can also see why the artistes here would want to take their freedom of expression to a level which they are all obviously comfortable with and which most of the audience too appear comfortable with. At least I didn't heard anyone complain that it was all too real!
The other thing is that what the west perceives as risky is often just an every day part of life in many parts of the world, especially in the burgeoning cities of India. In Mumbai you are far more likely to fall in an open gutter and die than be severely injured or even remotely hit by a piece of the earthern 'matka' thrown at the far end of the stage.
Here is an interesting link I found while trying to look up what’s ‘acceptable’ when enacting violence on stage.
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=F_aoM_3-tRMC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=portraying+violence+in+theatre&source=bl&ots=54PdJJ8m7B&sig=Z7_hekqt_wwiZotxrdXJZ-EoGhI&hl=en&ei=fcl4S5q2Ipub8QbL_KT0CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=portraying%20violence%20in%20theatre&f=false
Finally, I have to admit I haven’t seen much theatre in other parts of the non-English speaking world (example Greek Dramas) and I don’t know, in today’s time, if there are other places who are still keeping it ‘real'. So more on this when I’ve done that. And till then, all your personal views/experiences welcome!
The play was part-narration, part-enactment of a controversial 1970s play on censorship in theatre. The acting was powerful and there was an unusual mix of several mediums- cinema via film clips that came up at appropriate points on a screen overhead, ‘lavani’- a traditional, seductive Marathi Folk Dance, and the theatre act itself. The play was mostly in Hindi with a small sprinkling of English and Marathi.
Based on my very amateur, personal experiences of watching theatre, there are a few things that spring to my mind when I’m watching a play in India. Firstly, it is the props and lighting. When I watched my first few shows at the West End, I was mesmerized by the lights, the background, the clever way in which the stage got transformed, the quality of the sound, the beautiful interiors and the large size of the theatre halls. It always took me a while to focus on the artistes and the play itself.
Since then, I’ve watched several excellent dramas and musicals at the West End, and sometimes the better ones were those where the stage was bare and the ‘extra effects’ minimal. That’s when you got to focus on the actors without any distraction and they had to be really good to get your attention and keep it. But one of my favourite plays was not a West End one. It was a £5- ticket-play performed at the back of a local pub in South East London. The stage was just the floor, the seating consisted of rickety chairs in this cramped and dark room. There were three artistes and about 5 props including a kid's rubber dinghy. They acted magnificently- much better than anything I had ever seen at the West End !
In India, from what I gather from my amateur research, as cinema grew in popularity, theatre got pushed to the back when it came to financial investments. So I haven't seen any theatre houses with fancy stages at multiple levels, sliding walls, high-end lighting and sound effects. But I always find the artistes to be extremely passionate, versatile, eager to act out hard-hitting social issues, or doing a good parody of the eccentricities of the Indian way of life. It all feels very ‘real’ especially when they use a local language like Hindi.
And this brings me to the 2nd point- how ‘real’ should an act be? I speak here of the modern times only, say from the last decade onwards. The play I saw recently depicted household violence- a man hitting a woman and also later on a woman hitting a man. Very refreshing that 2nd bit! And it was also a point of severe controversy in the original 70s version. To add to it they showed the woman's character drinking booze on stage which led to a big ruckus at that time.
However, in the version I saw this weekend, the hits, kicks, pushes and falls (and there were quite a few) were very intense and very real. I was about 50 metres from the stage and I saw and heard the thuds of falling bodies. I saw the kicks too- legs making contact with the other actor’s abdomen. The grabbing of hair and pushing was very real too. Enough to make the audience in the front gasp.
I tried to remember if it had always been like that. But in my pre-West End phase I had never seen a play depicting too much violence so I can’t compare. At one point in the current play an actor picked up a large earthen pot and flung it at the far end of stage, well-away from the audience side, where it broke into a thousand pieces. At another point the man was to strangulate a woman on stage and after the scene I was staring at the woman to see if she would get up or not! Now all these scenes were extremely relevant to the play and the raw emotions/ actions did make everyone wince and 'feel the pain', which was probably the purpose of these acts. It’s also clear that the artistes, both men and women, were doing this very willingly for their art.
But in my head, specifically in my exposed-to-the-West-side' part of the brain, there were a mix of thoughts like:
‘ Oooh what about Health and Safety of the artistes??’
‘ What if the women got bruises on their bodies? They have a couple more days of the show. Although the sari covers them well.’
‘ What if the woman, who was seriously kicking the guy who was lying rolled up on the floor, hit him the wrong place!’
‘What if the guy put a few fingers at the wrong place by mistake while doing the strangulation scene with such intensity?
‘What if the ‘matka’ or earthen pot splinters flew up to hit the artistes or the audience as the stage is really small?
Yes it sounds crazy. But I can totally see why this would never have been enacted the same way on Broadway or the West End. For one, the white Caucasian bodies (is it correct to use the word 'Caucasian' now-a-days?) bruise too easily and turn blue and black!!
Still, I can also see why the artistes here would want to take their freedom of expression to a level which they are all obviously comfortable with and which most of the audience too appear comfortable with. At least I didn't heard anyone complain that it was all too real!
The other thing is that what the west perceives as risky is often just an every day part of life in many parts of the world, especially in the burgeoning cities of India. In Mumbai you are far more likely to fall in an open gutter and die than be severely injured or even remotely hit by a piece of the earthern 'matka' thrown at the far end of the stage.
Here is an interesting link I found while trying to look up what’s ‘acceptable’ when enacting violence on stage.
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=F_aoM_3-tRMC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=portraying+violence+in+theatre&source=bl&ots=54PdJJ8m7B&sig=Z7_hekqt_wwiZotxrdXJZ-EoGhI&hl=en&ei=fcl4S5q2Ipub8QbL_KT0CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=portraying%20violence%20in%20theatre&f=false
Finally, I have to admit I haven’t seen much theatre in other parts of the non-English speaking world (example Greek Dramas) and I don’t know, in today’s time, if there are other places who are still keeping it ‘real'. So more on this when I’ve done that. And till then, all your personal views/experiences welcome!
Comments
Post a Comment