Delhi’s theatregoers have seen the freshness in the theatrical art of Noushad Mohamed Kunju, highly trained professional theatre director and professor, when he was artistic director of Shri Ram Centre about a decade ago. There are two distinguished features of his directorial oeuvre – he makes members of the cast his collaborators in the discovery of new interpretation of a given script rather than imposing his own interpretation on them. In this process, performers bring out their best, vividly painting their characters with multiple emotional shades. The other aspect of his art is that he reveals the artistic vision of his work in an unpretentious and unambiguous style to the audience.
These aspects were very much in evidence in his production of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” which was part of Spring Theatre festival organised by the National School of Drama’s Sikkim Theatre Training Centre repertory Company, Gangtok, at Shri Ram Centre recently.
Adapted by the late Neelabh, a poet, journalist and translator, the script was in Nepali with the use of Hindi at some places. The play opens with a recruiting officer and a sergeant talking about attracting young people to join the Army. They suddenly see the young son and his mother selling merchandise to soldiers at the war front at exorbitant prices. She has kept her goods in a cart being drawn by her sons from one war front to another.
Petty profiteering
Despite Mother Courage’s objection, the recruiting officer manages to conscript the elder son. Then we watch a series of episodes from the war between two sworn enemies with Mother Courage indulging in petty profiteering, unmindful of vast devastation caused by the war. Her objective is to make the life of her children.
In fact, she ruins their life. The mother of two young sons and a mute daughter, she moves with the army with her cart loaded with goods. In the midst of fierce fighting, she manages to survive by replacing insignia of the defeated army with the winning one.
She has learnt no lesson from the destructive nature of war. To remain alive, she refuses to recognise the body of her son killed by the winning army, to establish that she belongs to the winning camp.
“Mother Courage” is considered the greatest anti-war play of all time. Naturally, over the years, we have seen several significant productions of the play in different Indian languages. The Hindi version titled “Himmat Mai”, directed by Amal Allana, with late Manohar Singh in the lead role, is considered a milestone.
The original play is set in the Thirty Years' War (1616-1648) fought between Catholics and Protestants. The play under review deals with the war between Jatadhari and Tilakdhari. The milieu largely remains unidentified. The backdrop of the war appears to be more imaginary rather than based on historical facts.
Pacifist message
Noushad’s production brings out to the fore the anti-war thesis of Brecht and its pacifist message in an explicit manner. There are scenes of ravages of vast landscape caused by mindless war with emphasis that war causes lawless situation in which nothing survives. However, Noushad’s use of a narrator projected on the upstage screen was not very effective.
Apart from flaws in projection, the narrator merely tells the outline of the events to be unfolded. To make it more effective, in tune with the aesthetics of epic theatre, the narrator should have provided the audience with political and economic analysis responsible for the occurrence of war and in the process ruin humanity.
In epic theatre, music is expected to create an effect of alienation to reflect on social and economic antagonism. Some of the songs rendered serve this purpose. But the lullaby Mother Courage sings to her daughter's corpse with other women is too emotional and deeply poignant.
The production is remarkable for its vitality and the movements of the cart on the empty space that suggest the arduous journey of the Mother Courage to make war as a source of profit. When all her children are swallowed by the dreaded war, her desire to quench her thirst for profit remains unfulfilled. We watch the ageing Mother Courage alone, pulling her cart, resolutely determined to do business.
Ranjana Manger in the title role of Sahasi Aamla (Mother Courage) gives a brilliant performance. Bikram Lepcha as Arjun as the elder son of Mother Courage gives a convincing performance. Uttam Gurung, as the second son, is also impressive.
Prarthana Chettri, as the mute daughter, expresses the agony of a war victim through her eloquent facial expressions and movements. Chandrika Chettri, as the prostitute, acts with conviction, ridiculing the lecherous men in uniform who have made her the object of their lust.
