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The Globe goes global

Tim Supple's multi-lingual production "A Midsummer Night's Dream" makes its world premiere in New Delhi soon. ANJANA RAJAN tries to figure out the stuff the dream is made of

NEW HEIGHTS Actors presenting scenes from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at a curtain-raiser event in New Delhi PHOTOS: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

It's all about clashes and crashes, blaring opposition and groping for solutions. About outer appearances and hidden inner layers, about contrasts and surprises, slip-ups and clean-ups. That's life. That's theatre too, as anyone serious about the art of the stage will agree. And that roughly, is how eminent U.K.-based theatre director Tim Supple, in New Delhi to launch his latest international production, describes Shakespeare.

Five centuries ago, Shakespeare called all the world a stage. And named his playhouse The Globe. Much before the Bard of Avon, others thought on similar lines - among them the seers who compiled the Vedas and used theatre imagery in their obeisance to the wonders of nature. But Shakespeare is the quintessential theatre man, not merely because his plays continue to be performed with unabated zeal across the world, but also because he was keenly aware of the power of performance to transform the written word. Today, as his works form an important segment of theatre activity across the world, in translated and transcreated forms, The Globe seems to be taking on greater dimensions. Supple's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", a part of the British Council's Creating Tomorrow project, with a cast from India and Sri Lanka, speaking the Bard's immortal lines in seven languages, epitomises the concept.

Multi-lingual net

This Thursday at a preview in New Delhi that provided scenes from the production, whose world premiere takes place in New Delhi on April 1, the actors lunged and danced, climbed and fell, throwing their bodies with as much energy as they invested in their verbal expression.

As Malayalam, Tamil, Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala and Marathi bounced back and forth, with a fair amount of English thrown in, the actors and musicians created a multi-lingual net of sorts - a metaphor in its way, of the scaffolding erected at the back of the stage, which the acrobatic cast, drawn from modern and traditional theatre traditions, including those of Kalaripayattu, the Bajaniya nats and Terukoothu, used in varying ways.

While Indian performing arts are based on a high level of stylisation the actors here are often in bodily contact, which creates a powerful image quite different from the power suggestion. Supple agrees, saying his basic tenet was to do "what feels right". Anyway, he explains, "I'm not interested in Indian or English traditions being replicated." Thus his two months of intensive rehearsals with the cast and two years spadework besides have been a journey of discovery, a journey on which he hopes his audiences will accompany the group. "We've been learning Bharatanatyam too, though we're not really using it," he says by way of example.

Relaxed watching

Tim Supple

Supple maintains that though the play contains innumerable layers and conflicts - say, between the privileged and lesser-privileged classes, between freedom of choice and totalitarian values, between the sexes, and within the individual too - he wants his audience to "relax" while watching the show. Yet with so many languages rapidly interchanging, it is difficult to `turn off' the intellectual faculties that try to follow the dialogue. Again, the director agrees this may happen. But then, in India everyone is used to speaking several languages within a single conversation. Precisely why, says Supple, he feels it is quite natural to be doing this celebrated Shakespearean comedy in this manner. The play, incidentally, after showing in Delhi on April 1, 2 and 3 then travels to Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. We always knew English is a language that adapts to every country and every tongue that speaks it, like water taking the shape of every vessel it inhabits. Now it seems, English no longer needs to be spoken in English either. Certainly not when all the world's a Globe!

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