The author meets his characters

Music, local lingo and celebration of love were the driving points of Sanchaya’s Tempest

PROSPERO’S SPELL: A scene from the play.

William Shakespeare’s Tempest speaks the language of the spectacular. Elements of magic, enchantment and wisdom dictate the plot. A common feature of Shakespeare’s dramas, some would say. But, what sets Tempest apart is the fact that the powers of the miraculous are vested in the hands of one character alone — Prospero, the banished king of Milan.

Staged at Rangashankara, Sanchaya’s Kannada version of Tempest went a step further. Apart from endowing Prospero with the ability to cast a spell on his fellow characters, it dared to lift the curtain to reveal the spell Shakespeare, the playwright, has cast on Prospero. Throughout the play, at regular intervals, Shakespeare would intervene and ponder about his creations and what they were doing to each other. Addressing the audience, he wondered whether Prospero was consumed by his need for revenge and whether he needed to intervene and change his mind.

Of course, Sanchaya is not the first troupe to introduce Shakespeare as a character on stage. Many modern day adaptations have introduced the bard as a character in them. In Sanchaya’s version too, the character of Shakespeare opens the play, engineers the Tempest and leaves the stage. But what was peculiar about this particular adaptation was how it tackled the relationship between the playwright and his characters head on. Be it the scene wherein Prospero and Shakespeare stand on stage and deliver their lines together, erasing any possibility of Prospero existing without his creator, or the part when Caliban rebels against Shakespeare and asks why he must remain a slave and why there isn’t a possibility of breaking out of the low status given to his class. Specially in the case of Caliban, while the other characters seem to sympathise with him, they assert that the bard has ordained his class position and that’s how it is to be.

Tempest has been adapted numerous times with some productions highlighting the otherworldly aspects by heavily investing in magnificent set design while some others using the text to raise pertinent social issues such as the issue of class status for instance. Sanchaya’s strength was in the manner in which it managed to translate, adapt and present Tempest in Kannada. The regional language version retained the complexity of the text, was faithful to the original and also emerged as a sententious, yet serious Kannada dramaturgical treatise.

What was disappointing was the lack of imagination when it came to set design. Cylindrical plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling with fairy lights attached to them did not do justice to the bewitching landscape that the original play is set in. However, the actors used their bodies well to make up for the lack of set design. For instance, the manner in which they portrayed the boat stuck in the storm was interesting.

Music played a significant role in this adaptation. It not only provided the necessary link between scenes but also accentuated themes of love, class struggle, authorial intent etc. In terms of performances, there was no doubt that the actors who played the role of Trinculo, Stephano and Caliban stole the show. With incredible comic timing, the actors infused a local flavour into a text which could otherwise be alien to the city’s audience. Finally, the theme of love was championed and even celebrated through the play. The performances of actors who played Shakespeare and Prospero too were engaging. The debate on authorial intent was sealed with Shakespeare and Prospero hugging each other towards the end of the play.