As the curtain goes up our eyes are dazzled with the projection of a huge image of a dam and sprawling landscape. There is a cacophony of sounds. An old woman is trying to stop a young man from visiting a girl whose father has rejected him as a suitor on the ground of his unconventional behaviour and unscrupulous way of life. This is the opening scene of Henrik Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt” presented by the final year students of National School of Drama at Abhimanch this past week. In the course of the lengthy playing time of the play, the work of videography and mapping designer Ahsan Reza Khan and costume designer Tanmay Gupta continue to capture the attention of the audience. In the process the content and poetry gets obscured. As far as music is concerned, it tends to be patchy.
Written in 1867, “Peer Gynt” is a complex work of art in which fantasy of a youth with modest social status in a hill society about achieving wealth and to rule over the world is contrasted with stark reality of life. It is a play in which rank opportunism and unscrupulous pursuit of vulgar materialism of a youth finally enables him to achieve what he dreamed of. Gynt’s wild quest culminates in his realisation that true happiness is possible to be with his first love, an innocent girl in the hills, whom he has abandoned to amass vast wealth to rule over the world. Owing to its complicated plot structure, poetry, fantasy and length, only a few directors have attempted to stage it. In recent memory, Bansi Kaul directed it for NSD. However, the most memorable production of this play was by V.K., recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi award, who transformed it into a musical, highlighting its poetic content and communicating the theme in a style that made possible to comprehend the play.
The production of “Peer Gynt” under review is adapted and directed by Kamaluddin Nilu, who is settled in Norway and internationally known as theatre director and independent researcher. “His most important research articles include contemporary political relevance of Ibsen’s Brand-the Case of Islamic Fundamentalism.”
Born in Bangladesh, he is a graduate from NSD and has been experimenting to create ‘a new performance aesthetics’ which exists between cultures – not ‘ours’ not ‘theirs’.” If the production he did for NSD is an illustration of ‘new performance aesthetics’ one gets the impression that his kind of aesthetics aims at dazzling the audience with visual extravaganza. In fact, the device of creating miracles and overpowering scenic backdrop for the action had been popular with the practitioners of the Parsi theatre. The power of such mesmerising effects has increased many fold with the advance technology.
In the opening scene Gynt and a young girl are shown in close embrace and then they roll about on the acting space from upstage to downstage. Similarly, there are some scenes where scantily dressed girls desperately try to seduce Gynt – these scenes tend to be bordering on vulgarity rather than projecting erotic poetic imagery.
Translated into Hindi by Amitabh Srivastav as “Native Peer”, in Delhi there are serious theatre practitioners who have done significant work that displays Ibsen’s relevance to Indian situation, especially his “A Doll’s House” and “Enemy Of the People”. As far as Peer Gynt is concerned, it reflects a dark face of neo-colonialism. “In his gay unscrupulousness, his adventurous egoism, and his amiable immorality” as Eric Bentley puts it, “Peer Gynt is the Don Quixote of Free enterprise and should be the patron saint of the National Association of Manufacturers.” In this comment lies the contemporary relevance of Peer Gynt and Ibsen’s enduring appeal. In Nilu’s production there is a scene where Gynt talks of corporate world, terrorism and West Asia.
But the idea is not elaborated. In a production like this one in which the form acquires dominance, the art of actors and the poignant lyricism inherent in the script remain unexplored.
