Article
Theatre India
National School of Drama's Theatre journal
May 2004 Number Nine
The Theatre of Ratan Thiyam
Kavita Nagpal
Contemporary in thought, technically dashing, with themes featuring universal
concerns expressed via a dramatic idiom rooted in tradition, yet inventively
creative and continuously experimental is perhaps as appropriate description of
Ratan Thiyam's theatre in brief. In play after play these elements surface
skillfully placed in context to time, concern and content. Another distinctive
feature is the connection to his social milieu and how it transcends Manipur to
include the world.
Hey Nungshibi Prithivi (My Love! My Earth!), Ratan's latest play staged at the
6th Bharat Rang Mahotsav, is a complex weaving together of episodes of violence
and destruction in human history across time and space to illumine a concern for
peace. The play in a way is a quintessence of Ratan's anxiety over several
years. In his earlier plays (Imphal Karushi/ Let's go to Imphal and Imphal
Imphal) the disquiet was provoked by the economic and political situation in
Manipur. The educated unemployed youth in Manipur is legion. Things have come to
such a pass th! at many survive plying cycle rickshaws. And they are so ashamed
of this degradation that they conceal their identities: Thus the many
bandit-like masked rickshaw-pullers in Imphal. Drug addiction is rampant; HIV
and AIDS in serious numbers; and if the young do not perish thus, there are
ethnic battles often engineered by powerful satraps, to snip their lives.
Manipur has always felt isolated from the rest of the country. There is a
feeling that their 'country' was 'annexed' to the Indian Union after the unfair
dismissal of a fairly elected government under the Manipur State Constitution
Act 1947. Manipur lost its suzerainty to the British in 1891 after the Manipur
War of Independence but was not annexed and internal governance remained in the
hands of the monarch. Its relations with the neighboring Myanmar have always
been tense. An independent kingdom, Manipur defeated Myanmar twice. The
Myanmarese overran Manipur between 1819-1826, a period which the people refer to
as Seven Years of Devastation. Hey Nungshibi Prithivi takes off from this period
of humiliation and destruction, a time the Manipuri people find impossible to
forget.
His Manipur is eternally present in Ratan's dramas, even in those based on
stories from the Mahabharata. In Chakravyuha (1984), the play that shot Ratan
into international limelight, his concern for the youth and its continuous
betrayal by the older generation is predominant in the depiction of Abhimanyu.
The 15 year-old son of Arjuna trustingly enters the Chakravyuha created by Drona.
His uncles Yudhisthira and Bhima
are aware that he does not know how to get out of the martial configuration, but
they provoke his sense of daredevil courage and Abhimanyu succumbs. Does he, as
the epic portrays, dies a martyr or is Abhimanyu a scapegoat? Ratan is pointing
to the political powers in Manipur that, to further their own ambitions incite
youth to suicidal acts in the name of heroism.
Duryodhana the Kaurava is seen as a contemporary man, a materialist. Says Ratan
"We live in a materialistic world so how can any Duryodhana, a man who has
fulfilled his duties as a king, find this absolute truth (of the Gita)? He is
systematic, calculating and aware of the course of events. Truth for him stems
from this concrete reality. He is logical and critical. The more critical you
are and the more inward looking, the more you suffer. Duryodhana has to suffer
and die." (Chakravyuha – Pre-text and Performance text: Kavita Nagpal).
In Bhasa's Urubhangam and Karnabharam too Ratan seeks the voice of Manipur and
gives it his own tongue within the reality of alienation. The scene where Kunti
'floats' Karna across the stage to be gathered by Radhe, a memorable moment in
Indian theatre, echoes the divide between the 'royal' society of the mainland
and the Manipuri identity. This estrangement is manifest in the occupation of
sacred Meitei land by the Indian Army (Assam Rifles and the restrictions on
visiting the site of the monument to martyrs in the war against the British. The
criticism that Ratan's choice of themes is to project style and use tradit!
ional performance forms as spectacle is far from his intent. He plucks
appropriate forms and instruments from his heritage to serve the content and it
is the content, theme and concern that are paramount.
With Hiroshima and Uttar Priyadarshi staged in the late nineties, Hey Nungshibi
Prithivi forms a trilogy of a poet's anguished reaction to violence in his own
country and the world. Hiroshima (adapted from Badal Sircar's text) was specific
to a particular context and event for which Ratan visited the museum and sites
of the holocaust, studied the music, manners and gestures of the Japanese people
to create a new texture of language for theatre expression. Uttar Priyadarshi-
An Allegory of Violence, based on Ashoka's (c.272-232 BC) spiritual
enlightenment ! after his cognizance of the desolation and destruction in the
wake of his expansionist wars, is Ratan's creative response to political unrest
in Manipur. The negotiations with Naga rebels and the Manipuri fear of loosing a
large chunk of its soil to Nagaland has led to violent looting, arson and
deaths. In a gesture of protest Ratan returned his Padma Shri to the President
of India in 2001. "An artiste cannot remain quiet in such a situation. History
demands expression. Unless and until a piece of art breaks conventions and hits
the system it cannot work". (HT-Nov. 16,2003)
Hey Nungshibi Prithivi is an impassioned plea for peace. It takes a relentless
look at man's rapacious inhumanity during war, ethnic conflict, and communal
strife and mourns the barbaric destruction of monuments for hoe and faith. Ratan
plucks from the annals of history the most devastating and horrific events of
the last century to make his point. An old woman sits in the corner weaving on
her ancient loom, a spectator of the scenes of ravaged and shattered humanity
that follow each other in relentless succession. The play opens with a prayer –
a song of distress to the accompani! ment of the Pena – a traditional Manipuri
bow and string instrument. The haunting musical notes carry a prayer for
forgiveness. Seven warriors perform a war dance to the beat of the pung, cymbals
and winds as a prelude to the narrative of death and destruction.
An ululating song sung to the Pena ushers the seven celestial nymphs in golden
masks. Their dance of anguish sets the tone for the wanton inhumanity, terror
and pathos. The nymphs according to mythology can assume any form and inhabit
any space at will. Thus Ratan uses them as a device to travel through history to
bear witness to and recreate the multiple scenes of human tragedy. They are
birds flying to different destinations; they become maibis or priestesses who
commune with the spiritual forces to look into the future. Puwari, an ol! d man
(R.K. Bhogen) relates the prophecies of Nostradamus. The bare stage is a
veritable panorama of stirring visuals. The villager's cart is deftly
transformed into Enola Gay, the bomber plane that dropped the nuclear bomb
Little Boy on Hiroshima. Lights and music summon the terrible scene.
The Hiroshima holocaust is vivified through a nymph incarnated as a survivor.
One does not require Manipuri to comprehend the agony of the aftermath or the
terror of the happening. The whole horrific tragedy is enacted using the simple
device of a woman trapped under a tree (made out of some flexible material). Her
description of the devastation around her and of her own suffering evokes dread,
loathing and pity – combination of Bhibhatsa, Bhayanak and Karuna Rasas. The
mood transforms to Shanti as Puwari fixes crosses on the graves of the vict! ims
of war, offers flowers and reads out epitaphs. The scenes are linked by the old
woman plying her ceaseless loom weaving a cloth of love, hope and peace, the
itinerant Puwari and the wandering Nymphs, as the drama shifts between history
and present-day Manipur.
The Nymphs describe the concentration camps and the torture and annihilation of
millions of Jews by the Germans, the ravaging of German women by the vengeful
Russians, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and American retaliation with
bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan. Assuming the form of a bird, a Nymph
flies to Kampuchea and witnesses the genocide during the Khmer Rouge regime. Her
report provokes the eldest Nymphs to travel to Cambodia. Puwari takes her in his
cart and there they witness the pli! ght of widows and starving children. The
recent past reveals the destruction, by Croat extremists in 1993, of the
masterpiece of baroque architecture and a symbol of peace, the Ottoman Bridge
built by Sulejman, the Sultan of Mostar in 556, a heinous war where thousands of
Muslim women were raped by Serb soldiers in the name of ethnic cleansing.
There is no respite, no breathing space, no lull in the storm of violence. The
knot in the stomach only gets tighter. Four veiled women are chased by soldiers,
caught, imprisoned and raped. The chilling terror gives way to sorrow and pity
as the women big with child struggle to survive in captivity. In one of the most
dramatic and poignant scenes in the play we see the unborn children in womb-like
iron cages tied to the women's abdomens. The conflict of whether to destroy or
deliver their children torments the women. The women commit suicide after
abandoning their babies. And finally Ratan provides some assuagement: Mother
Teresa and her Sisters of Mercy adopt the children.
The Nymphs in the form of doves of peace fly off to Bamiyan to collect particles
of the shattered image of the great Buddha destroyed by the Taliban. They
sprinkle the sacred dust on Ground Zero where stood the Twin Towers of the World
Trade Centre. The Nymphs tear the cloth of peace from the loom and hold up the
dove of peace. History, battered and mutilated by inhuman brutality lies as a
desolate open tome on a wheelchair. "Are the flags of UN fluttering?" asks Ratan
in the epilogue.
Even with his own text, as is the case of most plays including Hey Nungshibi
Prithivi, words are merely the base on which Ratan builds movements. Language
goes far beyond the mere conveyance of the meaning of a word. Beyond the literal
meaning is the denotative quality of the word, its placing in space, the aural
tone, the thrust given by the actor in relation to physical movement and gesture
invests it with a distinctive purpose as part of Ratan's larger design. The
characters in the torture scene in Uttar Priyadarshi speaks no recognizable
language, yet the cacophony of the sounds the denizens utter, conveys the hor!
rors of hell. Highlighting the abomination are the sounds of wooden clogs or 'kharaons'
used by the ghor and his attendants. Beyond the simple oral effect, there is
physical thrust to words, the actor's entire body is involved in creating a
meaning for the word he is speaking, or the sentence he is constructing. This
physical portrayal is a distinctive feature of Ratan's style. The actor's body
moves in internal and external rhythm to the performance text. Ratan works his
actors through varied breathing techniques to create a distinctive language of
expression for each character.
There are a number of traditional narrative forms in Manipur that have been used
as teaching exercise for the Chorus actors and are directly and indirectly used
in speech patterns. Wari Leeba is the narrative form used to recite the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana. It draws pictures in words, syllables, via
variable intonation and enunciation with the aid of gestures. Both the epics are
distinctly bound within the Manipuri ethos. For instance, when the Wari Leeba
narrator describes the Pandava Bhima, he will enumerate the type of food a
strong man would eat in Manipur. Lairik Haiba Thiba is another narrative form
where two characters carry the tale; one narrates the original tale and the
other provides its interpretation, the modulations of speech and pitch patterns
create their own drama. R.K. Bhogen who plays Drona in Chakravyuha, Ashoka in
Uttar Priyadarshi, the Sutradhar in Hey Nungshibi Prithivi etc. has mastered the
art of both narrative forms to perfection.
As Ratan has explained several times and as is evident from the changing theatre
language of his plays, the word "tradition" in its usage as deriving from
"traditional" Manipuri forms does not apply to his usage of formal attributes
from folk or classical arts. Whether it is Nat Sankirtan, the processional Lai
Haraoba, the thang Ta or martial art, the Wari Leeba or the narrative singing
style called Pena, when it appears in Ratan's plays it has transformed itself
into a Ratan ritual/tradition! The process of appropriation has not been simple.
Ratan invited Gurus from different disciplines to work with his actors from the
very begin! ning, and continues to return to them even today to understand the
nuances of the actor's relationship to the space to the tradition, as it mutates
with the text and content.
The empty space is Ratan's preferred performing arena, his source of energy.
This space is constantly in a state of active mobilization of emotions through
alterations in design and colour, lights, sound and movement. The concept of
moving through space and time dominates Hey Nungshibi Prithivi and the space is
treated to maintain this illusion. Where most Ratan plays have an earth-hugging
quality in the use of acting space, here the theatrical adjuncts and the actors
appear to be levitating. The scenes of horror are viewed as if through a
telescope – images in sharp focus to be minutely observed for knowledge and
consideration. Costumes and colours of drapery are vitally important as are the
properties, both handheld and stage. The actors of the Chorus Rep craft and
create their own props thus establishing an intimate relationship and making
them indivisible parts of the character they are portraying.
Hey Nungshibi Prithivi is a complicated text with many subtexts that require
deeper study. History and philosophy, emotion and understanding commingle in
this epic of violence dedicated to peace.
______________________________
Kavita Nagpal is a Delhi based theatre critic and director. Has written
extensively on Indian Theatre in the last two decades for her career as Drama
critic.
|
