Poetry is perhaps the most complex and ununderstood literary genre: it is not song; it’s not story; it’s not fiction; it’s not reality; it’s not biography; it’s not politics; it’s not anthem; it’s not prayer (or its answer); it’s not a discourse on rationality; it’s not a cry of anguish; it’s not a shout of delight – but it can be all, or any of these. Poetry inhabits a paradoxical space that is best left undefined. But when felt subjectively, it has the power to open up entire worlds of emotions – of understanding.
Blank Page ,a theatrical performance by Tamaasha Theatre of Mumbai, directed by Sunil Shanbhag, that played in Bangalore at different locations all of last week, harnessed this power of poetry to create a memorable experience for every member of the audience in its own special way.
The show consisted of 17 contemporary Indian poems in English, Hindi, Marathi and Kashmiri, woven together with movement, music, and dialogue into a rich tapestry of meanings and emotions. Blank Page , the title of the performance, based on the first poem that was performed, Sada Panna by Kedarnath Sinha, demonstrated the irony and paradox of poetry itself – the possibility of conveying much through very little.
The four overarching themes for the poems chosen, were: 1) Writing ( Sada Panna by Kedarnath Sinha, Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher by Nissim Ezekiel, Poem by Pratibha Nandkumar etc.), 2) Women’s sexual/moral subjectivity ( Sheer Good Luck and Brat by Mamta Kalia, A Cunning Stunt by Meena Kandasamy, Bra by Sapan Sarath etc.) 3) Politics ( Battle-line by Imtiaz Dharkar, When the Illusion Shattered by Masarrat etc.) 4) Relationships ( Love by Adil Jussawala, The Pact by P.S. Rege etc.)
And then, there were poems such as Maansane by Namdeo Dassal, and Dukanwale Dada by Vaman Dada Kardak, which are straight-jacketed by academics as ‘dalit literature,’ that in the performance, both, explored and transcended these themes.
Shanbag says that this idea came out of the troupe’s exercises where the artists employ poetry extensively to understand the concepts of interpretations and multiplicity of meaning (that perhaps leads to self-discovery). They structured these explorations into a flow bringing unconnected works together that at times dovetailed into each other, at times punctuated the continuity, creating a rhythm – and a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts.
A poem about warring countries, for instance, was sandwiched between one about quarrelling lovers. It made one wonder if a lover’s fight is the metaphor for war – whose adjectives can be vindictive, needy, vengeful and self-destructive – or is war the metaphor for what transpires between people when love falls short: or whether these suppositions are the two ends of a whole spectrum of interpretations!
The poem Pact had people switching sympathies between the characters in its two iterations – each opening up a different way of seeing it. Dhasal’s anger and frustration at the world, that rose like a volcanic burst from Golpitha, and then subsided like cooling magma with a pitiful, humble cry for people to become ‘human’, was conveyed with much rage – later humility – giving the audience a complete tour of the path from oppression, to revolution, to love.
The team chose smaller spaces for their performances, such as classrooms and lecture halls, over conventional auditoriums, to retain the intimacy with its audience that was important for its communication. There were no props or sets except for some chairs for the performers to sit on, occasionally.
There were no special lights on the stage – nor were the lights over the audience, dimmed. There was no focus or layering of attention: everyone, including the audience, was on the same plane, living and loving words.
The team, consisting of Divya Jagdale, Hridaynath Jadhav, Maithily Bhupatkar, Natasha Singh, Nikhil Murali, Nisha Dhar, Priyanka Setia, Sapan Saran, Sonal Khale, Sukant Goel, Sunil Shanbag, Trishla Patel, Umesh Japtap, Priyanka Setia, and musician Rohit Das, did not act.
What it did was, move and shake. What it did was, touch.
