Simple tale told with tenderness
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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It was a relief to see a play that didn't manipulate sensations, but allowed a natural rise of feelings.
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AGAINST APARTHEID: Valley Song
"Valley Song'' was neither a rollicking comedy nor a spectacular tragedy. The standing ovation was not prompted by awe or transport. It came from the warmth of having bonded completely with a story about unremarkable, undistinguished people, in a remote mountain-banked village, in a distant land, and expressing everyday human emotions. What a relief to see a play that doesn't manipulate your sensations, but allows a natural rise of feelings tender and affectionate. And yet ``Valley Song" left you in no doubt that it was a protest against apartheid.
Juster laws had been passed but Fugard focusses on injustice that corrodes the soul. The village postmistress refusing to keep her office open to serve a tardy white man is a step forward in asserting rights. But, as Buks remarks, ``the less the government knows where we are, the better for us." The slavery of centuries cannot be wiped clean, nor the cause for that constant fear and trembling.
Fine performance
What a fine actor we have in Jagdish Raja! How easily he slipped into two roles - that of the White South African author (Athol Fugard) and the coloured farmer Buks, and without any change of costume other than cap. He relied on his voice, limbs and movements, to effect that character transformation. So confident that there was no need to stoop to caricature. If overdone, the play would have been lost.
And what better praise for young Nandini Rao than to be acknowledged as having done well in tandem with the veteran? The play had a slow start.
The leitmotif
The opening monologue by the author was humdrum. It did indicate that the story was set in the rock hard, bone dry Sneeuberg land, bursting into fruit and flower on damp, rain-drenched earth. This contrast between parched, unyielding age, and the fresh bloom of young life springing towards adventure, is the leitmotif of the play - in the land, crops, orchards and human beings.
Grandfather Buks, a veteran of World War II, is afraid that some white man will acquire the mouldering homestead and oust him from the few stubborn ``akkers'' from which he ekes out his living. His daughter eloped with a wastrel, died in childbirth, leaving her baby to be raised by grandmother Betty. When Buks cavilled at the infant's wailing, the proud grandma said no, she's singing.
Betty is dead now and the old man has nothing but fears of eviction, and apprehensions about a restless grand daughter, looking frighteningly like his runaway daughter. No wonder he grumbles — ``What is happening to all the sweetness in the world.''
Standing on an apple crate and watching a music show in a neighbour's TV, Veronica dreams of making it as a singing star in the big cities. ``Dream properly and it will come true,'' she tells the white man who catches her singing out her soul. But her `Oupa' wants her to clean and cook for the Master. ``I hear you, the whole village hears you, God hears you. Isn't that enough?'' Veronica is furious that the old men don't understand that she needs to grow as much as the pumpkin seed does, and find new earth to take root.
The girl rebels and starts telling lies until, ashamed of her subterfuge, she confesses her plans to join friend Priscilla in Jo'burg. After stormy ragings, the grandfather realises that Veronica must board the `railway bus, travel fast on the smooth tar road, chase her dreams in strange places far away.'
About morality and faith
So simple a tale, told with so much tenderness. No slogans to drive its points home either. A master story teller needs them not. The author muses that Buks husbanded the land all his life, and as much a part of the landscape as the old walnut tree. ``But Buks doesn't have a piece of paper with his name on it which says all these things, so he has to come begging to me because I've got a piece of paper with my name on it which says those akkers are mine.'' That's what the play is really about — morality, and faith. The psalms used so cannily, firm up the political as well as spiritual strands.
Evocative prelude
Original music (Sankarshan Kini) frames the play, moving it from the earth to the stars. Beginning with an evocative prelude, the action moves through songs unaffected, sunny and witty. Without any back score, they gain resonance one by one, until Rao's finale becomes a paean to soaring freedom.
The sound (Kartik Kumar) was mostly clear, though ears had to strain themselves at times. The lights (Kishore Acharya) were often tardy, not always smooth in transtition. And yet, with two actors on the stage, with two apple crates and a wooden bench we had drama pure, strong, convincing.
This is a director's play. Arundhati Raja, take a bow.
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
