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From bone and blood
PRAKASH BELAWADI
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For director Neelam Mansingh an effective production is not all. There is a sense of fulfillment only when there is a struggle to arrive at self actualisation
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Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.
Shifting Position Neelam Mansigh: ‘I wouldn’t take a position that judges’
Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry, NSD graduate and Artistic Director of the Chandigarh-based The Company, staged the first-ever show of what she believes is the most complex work she has ever dealt with. Still warm with a great showing of her “Nagamand
ala” in Tokyo, Japan, where “the play seemed to have got wings!” Neelam Mansingh spoke about her new production, “The Suit”, just before its opening, about her theatre and search for meaning. Below are excerpts:
Your productions, at least the ones we have seen in Bangalore, have tried find expression in narratives beyond the written text...
To me, to tell a story in a straight manner is not interesting. Even if it is an interesting story in itself what I am interested in is how I can make it my own... that the story or the production is ultimately effective is not enough for me. I must struggle to arrive at something that is an expression of who I am and what I feel... I am more interested in process than the actualisation... my sinews, skin and bone must be manifest in the narrative...
We have seen this in the two versions of “Nagamandala” by you in Bangalore, besides “Kitchen Katha” and “Sibo in the Supermarket” in Mysore...
I have a strange relationship with Bangalore! I so often seem to have my first show here. Did you know the show of “Kitchen Katha” here (at Ravindra Kalakshetra, 1999) was its first? Even “Nagamandala” opened here at the last Ranga Shankara festival. And now “The Suit”! I’ve not even had a dress rehearsal before the opening here...
This is a new work. This is something I have never done before... I’ve worked really hard on this. It’s the most complex work I have ever attempted... It’s a completely new way of working. I have never worked with realistic theatre before... I tend to work with images, with narratives that have a mythic quality...
“The Suit” is derived from a three-page story written by a South African writer. I saw it being performed in London 12-14 years ago by two black actors from Johannesburg. That production dealt with the theme of apartheid. Somehow this story never left me... I kept referring to it in conversations for years. But finally, when I decided to do it setting it in my own cultural context, I didn’t want to bring it into India and treat it as, say, a dalit problem... that’s not part of my history...
But there’s an issue there. One side of the argument says the artiste must be a disinterested observer exploring human urges, motivations and behaviour. But the other side sees the artiste as ethically obliged to intervene, take a position...
Oh, you can’t escape taking a position. But what kind of position will it be vis-À-vis the other? That is the question. Is it a shifting position? I wouldn’t take a position that judges... it cannot be a fixed position... it should all be seen in the flow, in its human connotations. Why people do what they do... it is for (my) theatre to mediate...
Like the ‘other’ Rani and her ‘business’ in your “Nagamandala” or the actual business of cooking in “Kitchen Katha” when the audience is offered a sampling of food cooked in actual stage time, you establish parallel narratives with semiotic other texts...
I like ambiguous images. Your sub-conscious mind stores all kinds of images. I allow them to come into my expression. When I want to put something on stage I can’t readily explain... like a pumpkin on a swing in Kitchen Katha, for instance... I do it. I don’t know what prompted me to, but I don’t shut it off. Theatre has to deal with the irrational... we don’t how we get these images, why we store them... years later, in Pondicherry, I saw the pumpkins on swings in the shops...
There is a kind of satiation taking place (in media). The challenge is how to make people respond to your work. I want to connect... first with myself, then with my actors and then to the audiences, the people... With theatre we need to see what we can do with the written text. TV has too many words, it can be exhausting. So I need to work it out... how much do I need verbally, how much through body, how much through silences... theatre, in a certain way, is our reminder of how we can look at life, look at ourselves...
But then how do you keep the market in mind? If you want to connect with an audience...
But this (need to connect with audiences) never enters my workspace. That is not how I work. The question is what happens when a play ends... but it is always changing, a work in progress. For instance, my Nagamandala... it is very different from the show you saw last year. It has acquired wings... so many things that work for you today may not work two months later... a play is like a living thing, like life itself.
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
|
