CHAPTER IBADAL SIRCAR AND THE THIRD THEATRE

CHAPTER IBADAL SIRCAR AND THE THIRD THEATRE

The 1920's witnessed the emergence of a new theatre movement in India which moved away radically, both in form and content, from what the proscenium stage had to offer. There was a group of 'progressive* or leftist thought variously opposed to imperialism, facism and nazism in the new theatre. Using Western dramatic forms and techniques, the earliest playwrights in the 1920's dealt with the contemporary, social, political, economic and religious problems. Although the British censorship ruthlessly suppressed these plays, the new theatre lifted Indian drama from myth and superstition to social and political consciousness.

The progressive theatre movement remained ineffective throughout the 1930's not only because of the British censorship but because of different poli­tical ideologies within the movement. However, the theatre movement, as a whole, admired Russia as a model for the overthrow of an oppressive government by the masses.

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The new theatre movement picked up again during the 1940's with the birth of the Indian people's Theatre Association (I.P.T.A.), which gave a new lease of life to the Indian drama. When Germany Invaded Russia in 1941 Indian communists, non-communists and anti-imperialists Joined together in support of the British. Out of the resultant group of artists, who realized that both democracy and socialism were endangered, the first significant native theatrical venture was formed as the Indian Peoples' Theatre Association which played a significant role in the regeneration of the theatre and other arts. IPTA's production of Bijon Bhattacharya*s Nabanna in October 1944 signalled the emergence of the minority theatre which became the dominant voice of Bengali theatre.The play, the playwright and the production seemed to have come together at the right movement to rescue Bengali theatre.

The Bengali unit of IPTA had attracted an assorted band of intellectuals, party activists, writers, musicians, Journalists, amateur actors and playwrights. As Kironmoy Raho puts it, "widely differing in age, background, temperament, accomplish­ment and outlook, they had a common meeting ground in

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a mood of social and artistic rebellion and anAindeterminate allegiance to Marxist ideas". Bijon

Bhattacharya, one of the earliest members of IPTA wrote a One-Act play Jabanbandl (1944) on the pauperi­sation of a peasant family. His next play was Nabanna (1944) on the same theme but ending on a note of hope and belief in the collective strength of peasantry.It blazed the trial of a new theatrical idiom both in content and form. With its most successful production, "gone were the artificial sets, the painted wings and the striving after illusory effects; gone too were the historic pyrotechnics of individual brilliance and

2the familiar forced accommodation of available actors". The play and the production had the germinal ingredients of a new theatre movement.

A new drama movement started with the cry of the peoples* theatre — a theatre of and for the people. The emphasis was on the depiction of the lives of the economically exploited and socially oppressed people.The movement further demanded that it was essential

1. Koronmoy Raha, Bengali Theatre (New Delhi : National Book Trust), p. 12S.2. Ibid., p. 129.

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for any one working for and in the people’s theatre to be an active participant in their struggles. The most important playwright who stuck to the norms and demands of IFTA was Utpal Dutt, and contributed his mite to the growth and development of the people’s theatre during the forties and fifties. He played a key role in strengthening the New Drama movement through his ’Jatra’ plays.

In the sixties, the political theatre became the preoccupation of a large number of non-professional groups and playwrights like Sombhu Mitra and Manoranjan Bhattacharya. This squalid misery of a life of the poor in Calcutta and the political turmoil in West Bengal in the latter half of the decade intensified the pre-occupation with the political theatre.

The middle of the sixties witnessed a dearth of good plays. Though as many as seven thirty six plays were written in Calcutta in 1965, an overwhelming majority of them were unworthy of being staged. Most of them did not deserve to be published. Some of them which were published in theatre magazines made good reading. No doubt, some plays evidenced keen interest in contemporary problems and showed a firm grasp over

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the craft of play-writing, a flair for dramatic

language and, above all, a confident spirit of expe­

rimentation. The playwright who excelled in all

these was Badal Sircar — India's "barefoot play­

wright ", the Bengali activist missionary of the

Third Theatre for the people which he shaped to

transcend the confines of the first (the traditional) and the second (the proscenium) theatres.-*

Badal Sircar's dramatic career began in the

late fifties with light, frothy and humorous plays —

Solution X. Ram Sam Jadu. Baroplshlma and Shanibar —

which reveal his uncanny ear for catching the rhythm

of everyday speech. He wrote plays chiefly to amuse

his friends in a club called Chakra which did not take

the theatre serious.

However, with his several visits abroad —

England, France, Nigeria, Poland and the U.S.A. —

Sircar spent a bit of time watching different theatres

of the West, especially the contemporary experimental

theatre. Naturally, a number of Western theatre practi­

tioners had a direct or an indirect influence on Sircar,

3. Gowri Ramnarayan, "The Endless Road of Badal Sircar's Free Theatre", Frontline. August 28, 1992, p. 73.

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the dramatist. He must have been influenced by the Theatre of the Absurd during his visit to France in 1963-64.

Jiadal Sircar* s early plays — Evam Indra.lit

(1962), That Other History (Baki Itihas) (1964) and There’s No End (Shesh Nei) (1971) are based on poli­tical, social, psychological and existential problems.Evam Indra.lit is a tale of a playwright who struggles in vain to write a play. He is not able to write a play because as a conscientious and honest artist he finds that modern life is too chaotic and fragmentary to cohere itself into a dramatic mould and too mecha­nical to have any meaning. No doubt, the writer cranes across a good subject when he encounters Indrajit, a rebel, but unfortunately he turns out to be a Nirmal much to his disappointment. As Satyadev Dubey rightly points out "Evam Indra.lit is in some ways about the residuej the residue consists of those who have failed to adjust, align and ceased to aspire, and also those

4who are enmeshed in the day-to-day struggle for survival". The play is a theatrically effective, crystallized

4. Satyadev Dubey, ‘Introduction*, Evam Indra.litThree Modern Indian Plays (Delhi : Oxford University Press), p. ii.

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projection of the prevalent attitude, vague feelings and undefined frustrations, growing in the hearts of the educated urban middle class^)

That Other History is a fascinating play inits Juxstaposition of domestic comedy and bleak vision.It is a three-Act play which has three plots — Sharad*s,Vasanti’s and the playwright*s. What in Evam Indra.il twas "an intellectual observation from a distance ofthe vacuity of existence, becomes in That Other Historyself-condemnation for the inability to fill this vacuity

5with meaning". While Badal Sircar accepts human fallibility in Evam Indra.lit. he demands human respon­sibility in That Other History. The play is "full ofirony reverberating with overtures of the subtlest kind,

6structurally inventive and ingenious".

There*a No End centres round a successful writer, Sumanta, who suddenly and quite lnexplicablly finds himself involved in a Kafkaesque trial* The leit-motif of the play is contained in the expression *—

5* Veena Noble Dass, Modern Indian Drama in English Translation. (Hyderabad s Taurus Prints, $88),

6# XfcjLci* f pi

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"we are all the accused". Persons from the past and* the present life of Sumanta accuse him of cynicism.A former girl friend accuses him of betrayal of his political party, a professor accuses him of abandoning his quest for knowledge and a former employer accuses him of irresponsibility. Even his own wife accuses him of his self-interest. Though Sumanta tentatively accepts these accusations, he is unable to fully accept his guilt. But, witnesses are brought to prove the various changes levelled against him. When the twelve members of jury simultaneously point accusing fingers at him, Sumanta assumes the role of the judge and accuses the counsel of their own responsibility for crimes raised in the trial. He defends himself saying that a code of law is responsible for the crimes he has been accused of. So, in his view, there is no judge to give final verdict as the accused becomes the judge. Towards the end of the play Sircar seems to affirm that not only Sumanta, but everyone is guilty. That is why there can be no final verdict on the alleged crimes. The trial has to go on forever. The play ends precisely on a note of warning :

There is no end. The trial will go on for ever —there is no end. The trial will go on for ever.

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Thus, Badal Sircar*s early plays from Evam Indra.llt to There *s No End are not only stylis­tically similar, but have a thematic continuity. This act of synthesis is made possible within the framework of a strong sense of the frustrations of intellectual aspirations, the failure to get involved and the resul­tant feeling of guilt. And "the self surgery of the heroes might often provoke discomfort among the readers or the audience. But, it is more the chill of being forced to look at something asked, in which they often discover themselves than any strong feeling of embarass-

7ment". Approached from this angle, Sircar's three early plays come to us as a trilogy like Mulk Raj Anand's trilogy — The Village. The Sickle and the Sword, and Across the Black Waters and Arnold Wsker * s trilogy —

Chicken Soup with Barley. Roots and I am Talking About Jeruselam.

After There's No End. Sircar wrote quite a few plays — Parev Konodln. Jadi Aar Ek Baar. Pralap. Trlangsha Shalabdl and Pagla Ghoda — which have not been translated into English. It was from Tringsha Shatabdl Sircar's attitudes underwent a further change.

7. Ibid., p. 66

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As Ella Dutta points out, "from the crisis of theindividual, the sombre existentialism that colouredhis plays till then, he explored with a scathingirony the social, economic and historical forces

8which were creating crises in our society".

After his return from Nigeria in 1967, Sircar established his theatre group called "Satabdi" which

9gave performances both on and off the proscenium.During his trip to Poland in 1969 Sircar first came in contact with Grotowski's "Poor Theatre" which influenced him greatly in formulating his Third Theatre. Furthermore, during his trip to the U.S.A. in 1972 Sircar's concepts of theatre were particularly influ­enced by Richard Sehechner's 'Environmental Theatre' and Julian Beck's 'Living Theatre'.

With the establishment of 'Satabdi* in 1967 and 'Angan Manch* in 1972, both landmarks in active theatre, Sircar's experiments proved that the theatre could be made flexible, 'portable' and inexpensive. It

8. Ella Dutta, "Introduction", Three Flays, p. vii.9. However, in 1973 the Satabdi left the proscenium

theatre permanently and concentrated on direct communication with the spectators.

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was no longer confined to limited urbanite viewing.

It travelled to remote rural regions.

Under Sircar's leadership the 'Satabdi' not

only rejected the proscenium but also dispensed with

such artificial aids as elaborate costumes, props,

make-up, light and sound. Instead, the 'Satabdi*

relied on an intimate environment, the strength of

the message being conveyed through physical acting

and considerable use of chants, non-verbal sounds

and alternative music.

Dispensing with all the paraphernalia —

sets, costumes and lights — Sircar placed great

emphasis on the most essential tool — human body.

This form of Third Theatre is literally a free theatre.

No tickets are sold but voluntary donations are accepted

after the performance. It is quite flexible and most

Inexpensive. It can be performed anywhere, in a room,

in a park or on the street. It can travel to people

hailing from different socio-economic backgrounds and

the feedback is immediate. The basic concept, as

Kavita Nagpal rightly observes, was "to free theatre of

all restraints of commodity exchange, to bring the

spectator and audience in a shared space by removing

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the artificial, illusionary proscenium so that therecould be direct communication without any sense of

10bondage or dependence”.

Sircar's Third Theatre is an outcome of a thriving process. The first theatre — Urban proscenium is a commercial theatre which exploits the people's Imagination and participation mostly for the sake of money. The second theatre — the Indigenous folk theatre — is performed in the open and the audience is not expected to pay anything to watch these plays. Sircar's Third Theatre is a living, experiential communication between the performer and the spectator, where the play becomes a participatory ritual. Unlike the first and the second theatres it seeks to change the thoughts and beliefs of spectators and, what is more, lead them to some action. It dispels confusion, illusions and make-belief. In short, the Third Theatre is a progressive social movement with claims to be contributing to changing the world.

The Third Theatre is based on the key concept of live communication. The communication can

10. Kavita Nagpal, "The Badal Sircar's Magic”, TheHindustan Times, (New Delhi, Sunday, April 5,1992),p. 13.

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take four directions — performer to spectator,

performer to performer, spectator to performer and

spectator to spectator. The first two forms of

communication are common to the proscenium stage.

Regarding the last two forms of communications

Sircar says :

"When we speak of the other two ways of communication we get panicky. We think that the spectators communicating to the performers or to other spectators would mean chaos. And so it would if we assume that communication is limited to language.The attention of the spectator, concentra­tion, the reaction to the performance reflected in his facial expression or the tension in his body — all these can be feedbacks to the performer or to another spectator •••• This is an intimate theatre..,. The language of this theatre involves being within and experiencing, not viewing and hearing from a separate sanctum at a distance". 11

What Sircar wishes to communicate through his Third

Theatre are clear-cut facts and concrete truths about

what is happening in the villages at the grassroots

level, the nature of exploitation, both industrial and

agricultural, and the urban stranglehold on the rural

economy. The ultimate aim of his theatre is to make

people aware. Sircar’s credo is simple :

11. Badal Sircar, "Azad Memorial Lecture", Quoted byElla Dutta in "Introduction", Three Plays, pp.vii-vlii

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From everybody according to his ability, to everybody according to his needs, 12

After formulating his concept of the Third

Theatre, Sircar has produced several plays. The first

play specifically written for the Third Theatre is

Spartacus which is yet to be translated into English,

Sircar*s later plays which are based on the concept

of the Third Theatre and translated into English are

Procession (1872), Bhoma (1974) and Stale News (1979).

The following chapters seek to make an indepth study

of each of these three plays which have been brought

out in a single volume under the title, Three Plays,

by the Seagull Books, Calcutta.

12, Quoted by Gowri Ramnarayan, Endless Road to Badal Sircar*s Free Theatre. August 28, 19927 p. 75.