Traditional and folk forms, the constant border-crossers

The devised play that I am presently directing at the National School of Drama is based on the short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, strung together episodically through images and musical interludes. One of the scenes prior to a story called ‘Sweat’ (‘Pasina’) has an actor performing Koodiyattam, an ancient Sanskrit theatre form, strictly staged in the Koothambalam, a theatre space within the precincts of most Kerala temples. For me, an ageless theatre form being transplanted in a Manto play seemed neither odd nor out of place. To some, it could be blasphemous, but it made me realise that a traditional form has the strength to be flexible and lend itself to other narratives, sometimes far removed from the traditional roots to which they belong.

I then posed this question to myself: do traditional forms resonate with the contemporary? Does it enter my theatre space as a decorative motif? Or does it dovetail with a story of infidelity, the narrative of Manto’s short story ‘Sweat’?

Form is never empty in the arts; the traditional and folk forms are constant border-crossers. Most works of art transgress geographical and cultural boundaries, upsetting settled notions of belonging and identity. The expanded universe in the arts does not fall into the romanticised trap of a global village. The crossing-over transforms given material to shine in a different light in varied ways.

The traditional structures represent an unchanging India, but within that, we have seen a borrowing, a blending and repositioning of forms far removed from its source. Does it work, or generate conversations, or look like a paste and patch sort of exotica? These are the questions usually debated and discussed.

Cross-overs started happening in the Seventies when Ebrahim Alkazi (1925-2020) directed Dharamvir Bharati’s ‘Andha Yug’. Scribed immediately after partition of the Indian subcontinent, the play is a profound meditation on the politics of violence. Its burden hinges on the ethic that each act of violence committed, no matter where, is a smear on humanity. The play is about the last day of the Mahabharata war and is based on the survivors of the Kaurava clan. Lord Krishna is central to the narrative as he presents the infinite ways in which good can manifest even in the midst of immense brutality and grief.

Alkazi’s 1974 production was done in the Kabuki form, a traditional Japanese classical art, with singing and dancing and a highly stylised performance. Alkazi stated that opting for Kabuki was an artistic choice that helped him circumvent the constraints posed by the aesthetic of realism. He was clear that an epic tale like ‘Andha Yug’, with stories of gods and warriors, kings and princes, required an epic form. It was evident that a text like ‘Andha Yug’ could not be produced realistically. His search for a form that could include the sacred and the ritualistic dimensions of the story made him gravitate towards Kabuki. The question that followed was, why did he not use a traditional form from India?

“When I visited Japan, seeing the theatre there, I thought to myself, this is like our epics, even though I understood nothing of the themes or their language. But like our traditional theatre, Kathakali, I found that Kabuki actors also transform themselves into signs, symbols and metaphors.”

It was not that he wanted to glue the Kabuki form on the production of ‘Andha Yug’; he wanted to see a resonance between the underlying principles of Kabuki in a play with characters from ‘Mahabharata’, the epic.

‘Andha Yug’ was performed against the backdrop of Purana Qila. The brooding stone edifice resonated with history. A wooden palladium had the chorus of ‘Andha Yug’ chanting to the musical composition by Vanraj Bhatia. The wooden levels and platforms constructed for the show had a massive sweep of steps where all the characters came alive in this drama of death and destiny.

I was then a second-year student at the NSD. It was initially disorienting to see Gandhari dressed as a Kabuki actor, with a winged jacket over her kimono, descending the steps of the ramparts, and a platinum wig trailing behind her. I had a minuscule role in the play and after it was over, I would quickly get out of my mauve and black kimono and rush into the audience to see the play. I found the play evocative, challenging and also a trifle puzzling. But yes, I was intrigued.

Another interesting experiment with text and form was done by director BV Karanth (1929-2002). His insistence that a theatre performance should not be beholden to one culture, or one particular way of working, was inspiring. He also felt that the identification of a work should not stem from regional or linguistic consideration, but have the capacity to embrace both the indigenous and the contemporary. He would humorously remark that “be Indian buy Indian, as a slogan, had dangerous connotations — as if the criteria of Indian-ness is that which is not foreign”.

Karanth rejected the myth of authenticity in performance, not through any theoretical interjection, but through unique collaborations. For instance, ‘Barnam Vana’, adapted from Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’, was crafted in Karnataka’s Yakshagana style, a popular traditional dance drama with a rare combination of dance, music and dialogues. This was a real challenge for the actors, who were trained in the realistic style of acting at the national repertory of the drama school. Karanth transformed ‘Macbeth’ into a performance of mixed cultures. He established an equation between the Bard and the Bhagwat, who performs the role of the vocalist in the Yakshagana form. It was an experiment in how East meets West and became a landmark production in the history of modern Indian drama.

He believed that art is a reflection of its times, and should not be identified with one stratified iconography. He wanted to create a theatre performance that manifested this plurality — plurality of voices, plurality of forms, plurality of training. He felt that many of our cultural forms have become ossified and could no longer be recognised as being part of something ‘alive’.

Our legacy of multitudinous traditional forms and stories that exist across the country, and indeed across the world, acquire a new life if they are set free from the stranglehold of caste, class, region, identity and tradition.

Respect for the past, our heroes and archetypes is embedded in our consciousness. The danger is when you get overwhelmed to such an extent that you cease to question them. Tradition flows in or flows out; we need to carry it forward in complex formations through time, space, memory and artistic inclinations.