First things first: music is the protagonist of the play. “Stories in a Song” is a rich tapestry of stories from the “song world”, partly fictionalised, but never taking them away from their definite moments in history. In themselves they are little nuggets, but they are those that — if not change the course of history — surely made a huge impact. Some even represent grand traditions that celebrate the spirit of music.
History is exhaustive; history of music in India is no less. There are some stories that have become mythology, but there are a whole lot of others that lie far away from the public realm, in margins, as silences and erasures. Music took shape, not in the highly romanticised ivory tower, but here and now, battling with self and society – it was best formed in the “stormy billows of the world”. “Stories in the Song”, performed by the Mumbai theatre group Arpana, provides leads into these journeys, and their makings.
The play directed by Sunil Shanbhag (of “Cotton 56, Polyester 84” fame), researched and conceived by musicians Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan, is a two hour vibrant and colourful production. Resplendent with the spontaneity and dynamic nature of the performances, the play set out to explore another kind of theatre possibility. “Theatre” as we normally define it was absent, and hence, for a hard- core practitioner, the play may have posed problems. The stage was more or less bare, and there was no grand technique involved. Since the impetus was to tell the story of music, these absences were hardly missed. If one did have a problem, it was the sketchy nature of some of the episodes, which failed to present the issue in all its complexity. However, since most episodes were set in pre-Independent India, the role of music in the nation-building exercise, and the manner in which it re-fashioned itself in the prevalent socio-political ethos, came through pertinently.
“Mahatma Gandhi and the Tawaif Sabha”, among the best episodes, was an encounter with the golden throated musical geniuses who were pushed to the dark corners of history. Vidhyadhari, played remarkably by Ketki Thatte, is a tawaif, who had broken away from the shackles of shame and humiliation and presented herself to the world with self pride. It's a moving episode – how these socially ostracised women too could not escape the influence of Gandhi, his response to them, and the manner in which they became a big force in the struggle for freedom.
“Chandni Begum” (an episode from Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider's novel), “Bahadur Ladki”, and “Hindustani Airs” have women as their centre. The manner in which they negotiated their times, their difficulties, hypocrisies of the male world, how with courage and conviction they challenged the Raj, and how they quietly altered history for future generations — makes them poignant and forceful narratives. “Hindustani Airs” is brilliant; it captures the musical exchanges between a British memsahib, Isabelle Hardinge (outstanding performance by Pia Sukanya), and a ganewali Khanum Jaan, enriching each other's music.
“Whose music is it?” raises issues of tradition, the ustads, their faith, the modern, gizmo-dependent composers, and copyright. It's a hilarious episode with brilliant enactment, but it was far too sketchy and clichéd. The “Kajri Akhada” was thrilling and took the play to its high point. The English Kajri – at once mocking the coloniser's language and appropriating it – was remarkable. A mention must be made of Namit Das, a fluid actor with the most organic singing abilities.
“Stories in a Song” opened up new ideas for theatre. Exhaustive research, a rich repository of songs, and a near perfect performance made it memorable.
