“Ich Bin Fassbinder” seeks to decode creativity. The turmoil within a creative genius, when the mind becomes a minefield, the madness, the doubts, the indecision, the frustration, the errors and the confusion before the perfect picture in the head is translated to the stage/film is where “Ich Bin Fassbinder” perches itself. But mind you, there is never a neat realisation of an idea into a film or a play, so the nebulous air that wraps this production turns into its characteristic.
“Ich Bin Fassbinder”, a play based around the prolific German filmmaker and theatre person Rainer Werner Fassbinder known for his berserk pace of filmmaking, was performed recently by The Tadpole Repertory at the intimate Siddhartha Hall at Max Mueller Bhavan. Fassbinder himself was a wild child of his age, born soon after the Second World War and in a short span of 15 creative years, did a mammoth 40 films and close to 30 plays. The production is a by-product of the 50 year anniversary grant programme of Goethe-Institut. This is Tadpole's second venture after the award-winning “Taramandal.”
With “Ich Bin Fassbinder”, director Neel Chaudhuri goes in for a play-within-a-play format. The protagonist Homi H is adapting Fassbinder's masterpiece “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” to the stage which is slated to open a prestigious festival.
The play which aims to break down the building blocks of a creative exercise only to put it together again chooses to unravel in a space where the audience is privy to every little niggle. The intimacy of the performing space appears to work both ways, the play which is more about the tussles within than presumably with the battles in the open can gain from the no-holes-barred view it lends the audience. On the other hand, the flaws magnify in proximity, be it the persistently truant lights or actors exchanging an important note in the sidelines between scenes.
Chaudhuri as a writer/director seems fascinated by the lives of performers beyond the arena of action. In “Ich Bin Fassbinder” too it is the stories within the actors than the stories they portray that is focused upon. So for each actor part of the play to be staged, there is a multimedia presentation that narrates his tales of truncated ambition, failures, zest or just the intense passion for theatre.
The production, almost 100-minutes long, dismantles a creative exercise, as Homi H, too taken up by his inspiration, attempts to be Fassbinder than himself, growing a grimy moustache and beard, switching over to denim jackets, and messes up his story. He changes the play midway, flips the cast, his story goes for a toss and actors rebel as some of them play seven roles in an incongruous tale. The man “who knew the morning his father was going to leave home” loses his instinct when it comes to his production. However, there might be redemption in store, as there is tomorrow and calls to be waited for.
“Ich Bin Fassbinder” falters with its excruciating pace and at times with its characterisation. So much is the preoccupation with Homi that many potent characters end up never knowing their potential, especially those like Homi's assistant, who is reduced to a mute spectator. Throughout the play, her silence seems to hold out a story, but to no avail.
With some smart pruning and restraint in unleashing confusion “Ich Bin Fassbinder” would have stood out better. But with the idea to be “simple and beautiful” and “loving and fathomable” at the same time, the task was never easy in the first place.
