All the World’s on Our Stage

The National School of Drama festival brings the best of East and West to Delhi.

An adventure in the greenish dimension of Takrilakastan, a modern day Odyssey in gibberish, a day in the life of a woman living in a kiosk, a lesson in war and sacrifice by six spirits—these are some of the experiences on offer at the National School of Drama’s 12th Bharat Rang Mahotsav. With foreign plays dominating the prestigious festival, one is treated to a range of innovative formats and experimental themes.

Though the fest is usually overshadowed by south east Asia, this time there is a fine balance between the West and East. So there is a multilingual play from Singapore, a one-woman one-act play from Japan, a physical comedy from Israel and a humorous insight into the automatism of a technological civilisation from Germany. The perspectives of the West on plurality and south east Asia’s take on conflict make for some very compelling theatre.

The emphasis in each play is not so much on dialogue as it is on body movement. Though subtitles appear on the screen for most non-English plays, the emphasised physical language overshadows the verbal expression and drives home the import of the play. Take Kiosk, for instance. This critically-acclaimed creation by Japan’s Arica Performance Company makes use of aggressive physical repetition as the audience follows a day in the life of a humble train station kiosk worker.

“We are trying to show the life of a woman who sells newspapers and water in a small kiosk at the metro station. Her entire life revolves around that one space. Earlier, she was a rope dancer but now she is a paper vendor. Hence, her present body movements reflect the skills of her past,” says Keizo Maeda, producer of the show. Artiste Tomoko Ando’s repeated physical movements unfold the complex layers of the body to harsh labour and also highlight the difficulties of communication between people. Her extraordinary yet simple performance won Ando the Best Solo Performance at the 2005 Cairo International Experimental Theatre Festival.

While Kiosk takes an intense look at human relationships, another single-actor play takes a light-hearted look at the individuality and spirit of the human race. Johnny’s Midnight Goggles, a production of the UK-based SharpWire combo, has been described as a piece of ‘absurdist, sustained and artful whimsy’ that one is unlikely to see in a long time. Written by Pete M Wyer and performed by Matthew Sharp, the play opened to a full house. With Sharp giving a virtuoso performance as the narrator, singer, cellist all at the same time, it felt like one had stepped into the pages of Arabian Nights. With his dramatic voice modulations transforming him from the cellist hero to the nasal French waiter, transvestite cabaret artiste and the black turbaned rider Dulang Dulang, it was hard to believe that it was just one person sitting in that one chair with a cello. “I have always been a little wary of one-act plays as most of them are very introverted and intense. I thought that if I am going to be in one, it might as well be funny and light,” said Sharp after the performance.

Both Odysseus Chaoticus from Israel and Life of An Automobile from Germany are physical comedies. In the latter, director Lars-Ole Walburg depicts the progress of a product from diverse perspectives, such as those of the conveyor belt, oil fields and stock exchange.

But the highlight of the festival is clearly the play from Israel. Using gibberish as its language, the play takes a new look at the travels of Odysseus. “We have used Italian gibberish, which is essentially a nonsensical language that sounds like Italian. This will allow people from any country and language to understand the play. Parts of the classic Odyssey have been intertwined with the story of a modern day eccentric Italian family,” says producer Alina Feldman. In this uproarious physical comedy, the three clowns play a diverse range of characters. As they hold the audience with their music and song-and-dance routine, they create a sweeping, rhythmic succession of scenes. A production of Ish Theatre, the play projects the desire of its three founders—Fyodor Makarov, Noam Rubinstein and Yolana Zimmerman—to stretch the realm of physical theatre.

But it’s not all song and dance and hahaha. A Doll’s House from Nepal and The Spirits Play from Singapore are prominent among the plays that strike a sombre note. A production of Nepal’s leading theatre group, Aarohan, A Doll House is inspired by the classic Henrik Ibsen play and is believed by many to be the first true feminist play. “We have interpreted it according to the daily pathos of the people in Nepal. The play explores concept of gender roles and objectification of women through the life of Nora Helmer,” says director Sunil Pokharel.

The Spirits Play explores sacrifice during WW II. Written by the late Kuo Pao Kun, known as the father of Singaporean theatre, the play has been reinterpreted by the newly-formed group Traditions and Editions Theatre Circus. The production centres around six spirits who are in a state of limbo as they find their way home. Each recounts tales of the horrors of the war en route to his/her destination. There are some extremely unsettling stories in the play—from a nurse’s horrifying experience of being gangraped by soldiers from her own side to a soldier reliving the massacre of his company. Yet, director Kok Heng Leun infuses each story with a beautiful narrative and haunting music and succeeds in creating a unique multi-lingual production, with actors speaking English, Malayalam, Spanish, Hakka, Cantonese and Japanese. “The play is very universal. When we decided to work with actors from different nationalities, we wished to help every single person in the audience connect with the play,” says Leun.

The endless rehearsals notwithstanding, each theatre group is anxious about the response they get from the Indian audience. “Multilingual plays are not new to India. It would have been politically correct to show cultures coming together, but we wanted to do it differently. Hence we have shown a clash of cultures and the difference within,” says Peter Sau, producer of The Spirits Play. While most plays have garnered accolades internationally, most directors still feel that each audience is unique, thus making their responses unpredictable. “People respond differently in different countries. For instance, in Europe, people don’t laugh out loud that much. They are more quiet. However, theatre is a place of unexpected things, hence having any expectations from the audience is quite nonsensical,” says Feldman.

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