It is not just the adrenaline of live performance that keeps theatre-makers charged up and raring to go. The process they enter into while creating a play can be equally, if not more, invigorating. When a play is on the floors, actors are still performing, as they attempt to breathe in the world of their characters, in search of that often elusive truth that defines them. One particular session comes to mind — at a basement in Delhi, where the Tadpole Repertory and Wide Aisle Productions were rehearsing their adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale , and this writer had the privilege of being a fly-on-the-wall observer.
Actions in lieu of words
Co-directors Neel Chaudhuri and Anirudh Nair were at hand. Nair was to introduce the actors to ‘psychological gestures’, an acting tool developed by the Russian theatre practitioner Michael Chekhov. The familiar and oddly comforting clutter that one might associate with a working theatre troupe gave the space a distinct character of its own. There were loads of empty bottles strewn about, and plastic cups — they contributed to a lived-in feel, if only transiently so. The first three acts of the play are particularly intense and this was reflected by some of the exercises.
The actors limbered up, and gargled up little storms. Among them was Bikram Ghosh (or Momo), a Tadpole pillar, or rock, or spine. In his head, he parsed through each word, but he was restrained from uttering them. Instead there were gestures which held the heaviness of a moment and delivered its gravitas. He administered his focus to every false move, accompanying each with a grunt of effort, to the point it was almost like language. He was almost driven to tears by the Herculean effort it required to hold on to the guile and the torment, and could feel the exertion in his arms in the end.
The two directors were chalk and cheese in temperament. Nair went on instinct and spontaneity, charismatic in sweep like a conductor looking to arrest the flow of movement, or rein it in. His sartorial choices injected colour into the drab space. Chaudhuri was laid-back and full of suggestions, and spoke in measured intonation, every inch an astute back seat driver. He made his point with the power of argument rather than an emphatic phrase. Everyone took copious notes, remembering moments that worked, so as to draw blood once again later. This was a set that never came up short of witty asides during breaks. After scene upon scene of focused work, that enervated and revitalised all at once, the interludes seemed light and carefree.
The bonhomie was respectful but congenial, there was a lot of nodding and agreeing. Words were thrown at each other in soft voices. “For you to go to courtroom, do you need me to go through ‘baby’?”, asked one. The baby was a roll of tissue paper. A mug from the toilet stood in for a phial of holy water. It was one of the play’s more famous sequences. An actor apologised for missing a cue, another was teased that the next time she forgot a line, it would be removed from the script forever. Another talked of forgetting to take a breath, so that she could coast through three lines.
A fitting end
The process demands its toll most definitely. Even the quietest simper had gravity, a consistency of intent. Pleasure, anger, hatred, all became ferments after a kind. The regally poised actor Kriti Pant held on each dint of emotion without respite, pushing through with her powerful vocals, while calibrating her feelings with the bend of knee or elbow. Without the panoply of lights and costumes and music, it was a performance in itself. The directors said, almost in unison, “Through the intensity of gesture, fight for the clarity of text always.”
Much later, when the gestures were removed, and the scene was performed as it would be before an actual audience, the play seemed much more sparse, almost empty, but still carried with it the remnants of some kind of blood-letting. They hadn’t tampered with the Shakespearean tongue, so words weren’t really accessible in the mien we have come to expect of the iambic pentameter, but they were fraught with meaning nonetheless. In fact, to listen in would be to waste a cadence. One was almost scared to do it, because you wouldn’t want even a single moment to not register. Chaudhuri and Nair’s attempts to elevate a scene to pure heart and impulse appeared to have borne fruit right there, on that turf.
The Michael Chekhov acting technique workshop will take place from August 7 to 25. Call 8898989553 for more details.
