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All the world's a stage
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Plays are stepping out of conventional spaces to explore new forms of expression and find new audiences, says MALA KUMAR on World Theatre Day
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NO STRAIGHTJACKET Theatre now comes with many faces and many voices PHOTO: S. THANTHONI
When asked about the new trends in theatre, one sharp blogger summed it up in a sentence: "Theatre is moving towards mediocrity." Let cynics like him say what they want, but theatre is no more just an art form practised to entertain an elite audience.
"Art is for everyone," says Parasuram Ramamoorthi, who teaches theatre at Madurai Kamaraj University. "Through our group Velvi, meaning tapasya, we have taken theatre to children in mental asylums, to prisoners and to people affected by the tsunami. And the impact of theatre is visible," says the soft-spoken man. Parasuram was in Bangalore to launch Indian Arts Movement, an umbrella organisation that helps theare groups do meaningful productions.
Huge impact
"After a year of theatre therapy, we studied the impact on schizophrenic children. They were able to sleep without medication, their personal behaviour has improved, and their eating disorders were reduced significantly. But there is not much of this kind of theatre happening in India," adds Parasuram.
Theatre is clearly no longer just time-pass. When city theatre group The Script wrote a play based on President A.P.J. Kalam's book Igniting Minds, they were thrilled with the impact it had on the school kids they were working with. It was a greater thrill, of course, when the President himself sat through the play when it was staged at the Ajmer Military School. "Now we're working with 100-plus actors, most of them first-timers, in the production Vision 2020," informs Rajesh P.I. of The Script. Specialising in playback theatre, the group uses body theatre rather than traditional modes of the art form. "With body theatre, there are no sets, no props, no costumes. There is lot of movement, lot of energy. Actors take on multiple roles, and the stress is on teamwork," says Rajesh.
Amateur theatre groups with catchy names like Misfit and Mashed Bananas suggest a certain characteristic of youth groups — free, funny, friendly and... frivolous? Producing a play is no joke, say artistes. But behind the guffaws and back-slapping seen during rehearsals is a lot of dedication and commitment to theatre. "Since 1979, Gnatak has produced several plays and a lot of people have come and gone through this group. The amount of learning that happens is tremendous," points out Prakash Aswani, founder-director of Gnatak, radio-jockey and art importer.
"I think an infusion of lot of modern forms of theatre is bringing about the death of conventional theatre," says Rebecca Spurgeon, a first year student of Microbiology in St. Joseph's College. Rebecca, who won the Best Supporting Actor award at the theatre festival Thespo, prefers serious theatre and feels the form has to bring out the potential of the actor. Having worked with several production houses, Rebecca is also the founder of Flavours, a group that will provide theatre solutions to various producers.
Clearly, there are now different kinds of theatre that reach out to different kinds of audiences. And just like everything else in this globe, there is a lot of mixing of genres.
Movement as tool
"Everyone is looking at extending the form," says contemporary dancer Anitha Santhanam. She believes movement is a great tool for dealing with concepts. "Increasingly, scientists are harping on the body-mind connection and muscle memory," says Anitha, who presented Vanaprastham, a contemporary feminist retelling of Kunti's tale. She has been using dance and theatre as tools to develop children's personality.
So theatre is no more a place where gaudily-dressed actors ham loudly. It could have a dancer who rattles of dialogues, a singer emoting boldly or a member of the audience trying out his hitherto-unknown talent for acting (as in playback theatre).
It's this ever-changing roles of elements that makes it so beautiful.
To put in Arthur Miller's words, the theatre is so endlessly fascinating because it's so accidental. It's so much like life!
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