Many people would not even be aware that there is a major international theatre event taking place in India right now, under which over 450 plays are being performed in 17 cities. Commenting on the Theatre Olympics, which like the sporting tournament takes place every four years in a different country, Waman Kendre, director, National School of Drama (NSD), said that there is such depth and variety of styles in theatre in the country, more than anywhere else in the world, yet, he is constantly being asked, “Where is Indian Theatre?
Every year when March 27 rolls around, there is a flurry of activity to celebrate World Theatre Day and the same question is bandied about.
Indian Theatre is either thriving or wilting depending on where one is standing. Kendre is also of the opinion that India has not been able to present one great playwright on an international platform, the way the U.K. has marketed Shakespeare; Germany has Bertolt Brecht, Russia has Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky, Norway has Henrik Ibsen.
Waman Kendre, director, National School of Drama
It’s not as if India does not have great playwrights — right from the classical to the contemporary — but, far from displaying them to the world, one part of India is not quite aware of what the other is doing. Unless one is going to theatre festivals or seminars all over the country — and there are plenty — there is no way for someone in Kerala to know what is going on in Kashmir. Now, perhaps, because of the Internet, the ignorance is not as profound, but whenever there is talk of theatre, it is usually centred around the problems of urban theatre. In Orissa, Subodh Patnaik and his group perform in villages, travelling with light props on cycles; in Assam there is a festival called Under The Sal Tree; in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, there is the Jhadi Patti Theatre (literally means tree and leaf theatre); what K.V. Subbanna achieved with his Ninasam in rural Karnataka is exemplary.
These are not traditional folk theatre practitioners, of which also there are quite a few, but dedicated theatre workers who have found ways of communicating with their audiences , in their own language and about their own concerns.
Interesting, the big budget theatre extravaganzas happen not in cities, but in far flung Assam where mobile theatre companies do grand productions, not the epics as one would expect, but dazzling stage versions of Hollywood and Bollywood films like Titanic, Jurassic Park and Sholay . The Jatra of Bengal and Orissa is now known of all over, even if audiences have not seen any of those epic productions in which top film stars are known to act.
However, in urban areas, there is a different kind of theatre activity; at one end of the spectrum are commercial plays, aimed at an entertainment-seeking, high ticket price paying audience; at the other are the experimental groups writing and performing their work at the dozens of alternative theatre spaces mushrooming wherever anyone has 1,000 sq. ft. or space to spare. This is where, to an serious audience of 50-80 people, theatre groups perform the kind of plays they want to, made on shoestring budgets, In Mumbai, it can be said that they are hoping to take the theatre route to films, television and web series, but in other places, it can only be a passion for theatre, and a desire to share stories and ideas. Because some theatre troupes travel to smaller towns to perform — even where there are no proper auditoriums — they know there is an audience out there, hungry for access to theatre and culture.
And all this theatre, from professional mainstream plays to small cottage industry kind of activity, exists because there are individuals who drive it. But for a couple of corporate houses that aid theatre, there is very little sponsorship for plays and hardly any government support. All theatre groups have to generate their own resources, some manage to produce plays with money they make from day jobs or other paying gigs. Which is why a few theatre practitioners were opposed to the Rs 50 crore that has been spent on the Theatre Olympics.
This does seem like an expensive indulgence, when in the normal course, the government does not care much about culture. Protests against censorship or high GST on tickets are ignored. If funds were to be made available for culture, more theatres could be built, more grants offered and better educational initiatives planned. It’s a shame that India has hardly any world class auditoriums, when there is constant talk of matching Broadway.
Still, every March 27, the theatre community finds something to celebrate about. For those who wonder what it is,World Theatre Day, says the website, was initiated in 1961 by the International Theatre Institute (ITI). Various national and international theatre events are organised to mark this occasion. One of the most important of these is the circulation of the World Theatre Day Message through which at the invitation of ITI, a figure of world stature shares his or her reflections on the theme of Theatre and a Culture of Peace. The first World Theatre Day Message was written by Jean Cocteau in 1962.
Messages from UNESCO regions
This year, to mark the 70th Anniversary of the International Theatre Institute, five messages were invited from each of the UNESCO regions: Africa, the Americas, Arab countries, Asia Pacific and Europe. From the Asia Pacific region, India’s Ram Gopal Bajaj, director, actor and former head of the NSD penned the message; to quote a line, “The very earth itself will not survive if the collective joy of live theatre arts and knowledge (including technology) is not emancipated, re-sublimated from the mundane, the fury, the greed and the evil.”
Starting from today, the supplement will carry interviews with theatre practitioners about what they are working on, why, where and how. The writer is a Mumbai-based author, critic and columnist
