|
| Vernacular voices |
| Neha Bhatt / New Delhi Mar 08, 2009, 00:58 IST |
|
Where do language plays figure in big cities? Mainstream theatre festivals are finding ways to bring them to a new audience.
A few months ago, veteran theatre director Ratan Thiyam’s Assamese adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play When We Dead Awaken opened to a full house and closed to a standing ovation in the capital. While subtitles that accompanied the performance faltered for most of the duration of the play, the visual imagery that Thiyam is acclaimed for — once again — overshadowed any language barrier that may have existed.
Interestingly, the facility of subtitling — which theatre festivals in big cities are becoming increasingly fond of — triggers the thought that language plays now have the ability to arouse a greater, more enthusiastic following amongst Hindi-English speaking audiences.
At the Mahindra Theatre Festival earlier this week, held at Kamani Auditorium and Sri Ram Centre in the capital, plays in Malayalam and Assamese were staged in competition with others in Hindi, English and Urdu.
The director of a Malayali play at this festival, Suveeran, observes that regional theatre is being incorporated into the theatre mainstream, although at its own pace. His drama, Ayussinte Pushthakam — The Book of Life, circled issues of sexuality and sin, steeped in religious orthodoxy. “The kind of Malayalam plays that have been staged earlier in metros are usually based on the Puranas. But themes such as politics and aesthetics have not been widely accepted till recently,” says Suveeran.
A play such as Ayussinte Pushthakam — intrinsically native to Kerala — is conceptualised mainly for a regional audience, he adds. If he is to direct a performance for a non Malayalam-speaking audience, he would stylise it very differently. “I wouldn’t want to depend on subtitles. I would make the visual art and sounds more expressive. The kind of subtitling done at the moment kills the play. Perhaps using a black screen as opposed to a white screen could help.”
But is regional theatre left best where it originates from, for the fear that such “stylising” or subtitling takes away from its essence? “It is difficult to travel with plays and sets, yes. It’s not like a film where reels can easily be distributed. But there is a desire to show the reality of our regions and from where we come from. The general perception of Keralites being 100 per cent literate can be challenged with plays that expose the gross divisions between men and women that exist and the kind of poverty tribals live in. These issues need to be in the mainstream,” says Suveeran.
But not all plays surround social contexts that need a wider platform, human themes are more universal and do not need the assistance of text. “We speak through the language of images, emotions, and silences. This kind of communication works on many levels,” shares theatreperson Neelam Mansingh, who has been directing plays in Punjabi for close to three decades.
“Many years ago when I went to London with a play, one of the audience members told to me later that she had initially been upset to learn that it was not in English. But as the play proceeded, she got so engrossed in the subtext that the language did not matter,” she points out. Mansingh will be taking her play The Suit —also in Punjabi — to Thiruvananthapuram in the coming weeks and wonders how it will be received.
“Unfortunately everybody does not have the infrastructure to facilitate translations. While there is a hardcore theatre audience that appreciates the language of theatre, there is also a section that can benefit from subtitling. It’s strange but people down south have never asked me why I don’t do plays in English or Hindi. But people in Chandigarh, where I am based, ask me why I don’t,” Mansingh observes.
Regions clubbed in one part of the country — the east, for example — find an easier exchange of culture quite naturally. Bengali theatre veteran Sova Sen, who is on the Mahindra Theatre Awards jury, explains, “Plays from Assam and Bengal merge with little effort because the languages are similar.” In a similar strain, bi-lingual plays — one of the languages being Hindi or English — flow as easily, working in tandem. In Preeti Vasudevan’s The Absent Lover, for example, the use of French did not fully alienate thanks to the use of English.
But if regions are to be measured by representation, Marathi, Kannada and Bengali theatre have been fairly well placed over the years. Thanks to playwrights like Girish Karnad and Vijay Tendulkar, adaptations of their work continue to be immensely popular across the country. Dr Utpal K Banerjee, the author of Indian Theatre in 21st Century, believes that for theatre from other regions, breaking the language barrier can go a long way. “Regional theatre from other areas is getting lost, therefore subtitling is a very important movement. But it requires prior work and meticulous editing, and that’s why some festivals steer clear of it.”
A precise synopsis and forums of discussion can also take them over to a larger base, he believes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Read Business news in |  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Advertisements |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Content Guide
