Nuances that lie

Despite the conglomeration of productions from India and abroad, the annual Pritivi Theatre Festival that concluded last week in Mumbai was not worth the wait, writes GOWRI RAMNARAYAN.

LAUNCHED in 1983, the annual Prithvi Theatre Festival, showcasing local, national and international productions, has evolved into a landmark event in Mumbai's cultural calendar. This year though, despite featuring groups from the U.S, U.K, Italy, Ireland and South Africa, the festival (November 15 - December 5) did not live up to expectations. The foreign repertories testified to nothing very much more than high level professionalism, and specialised training.

Physical theatre was in, and the script supplemented the multimedia crossed acrobatics in mostly non-narrative, episodic or abstract structures. Humour - from wit to farce - usually black, was a strong modernist component. And every group had its own methods for luring the viewer to participate in the action.

The last two plays at the festival made up somewhat for earlier disappointments. Dayal Pasculli's "Dark Side of the Light" had extraordinary mime sequences. As when the clown finds himself being dragged in every direction by his hat, which has a magnetic strength and mind of its own! Similarly, after "training" the audience to sough like the west, east and north winds (!) Pasculli flicked open an umbrella, and mimed being blown by them so convincingly, that we began to sway to his rhythms.

Every micro tale he spun was marked by his exquisite sense of timing, and infectious insouciance. The actor could also insert terrifying moments of existential nausea and claustrophobia into the rib-tickling acts of "The Suicide" and "The Goose Getting Out of the Glass Jar". But the detailed excremental images were too crass for me, though drawn from broad slapstick of the Commedia Dell'arte.

The simplest effort was "Skadonk" (which means a jalopy). It was also the most impressive. This two-man open-air skit was so strongly rooted in regional legend and language, that it struck universal chords in implication. The old narrative mode was perfect for telling the story of rural Africa where - as in every part of the globe - goodness fights a longdrawn battle against evil.

South Africa's disgraceful public transport system provided the motif of a taxi war between Big Ben the upright man, and Hub Cap, the corrupt owner of rusty, dangerous jalopies. Ben's wife dies in childbirth, and his new taxi is destroyed by the rival's machinations. The community is oppressed for years. Finally, Ben goes up the mountain and is about to sacrifice his son for his people's welfare, when the angels stop him and grant him his wishes. Eventually, the son becomes the owner of a brand new taxi to provide excellent service to the villagers.

So engagingly did Ellis Pearson and Bheki Mkhwane play the narrators and characters in this rustic drama that you became totally oblivious of the traffic noise round Horniman Circle where it was staged, and of the incessant cawings overhead. They also vocalised the background score, from birdcall and baby's wail to songs and chants. Simple props were used imaginatively. A burning tyre became a taxi and sent shock waves as it rolled amid the audience. Viewers were drawn to play characters at need, whether to fetch water to put out the fire, or to become a goat flung up the mountain to appease the python. Both form and content had the pull of a village elder's twilight yarn.

A whole row of children upfront were completely enchanted by the merry drama. Yes, the lesson of love, tolerance and sacrifice, of the need to keep going despite the odds, had no heavy underscorings. Rather, "Skadonk" blended Biblical allegory with African ancestor worship, and images from the post apartheid socio-political scene, in a homely version of a Miracle-Morality play. It made you smile, and range yourself quite naturally on the side of the angels. How can you admire the devil when he cuts such a ridiculous figure?

I did not understand a word of the jatra thespian's "Ekmukhi Sitala" in Bengali. But Chapal Bhaduri mesmerised the whole hall by his amazing range of expression. Here was a man impersonating a woman, both vocally and physically, who then proceeded to enact the roles of many humans male and female, old and young. The gods appeared too, Siva, Vishnu and Brahma, as Bhaduri depicted the story of Devi Sitala, the divine mother who is also the deity of the many varieties of pox. To this day, the pre-Aryan goddess is propitiated in rural Bengal by such ritualistic enactments of her life, ending in collective worship.

On the stage, Bhaduri was like one possessed. His voice changed with every persona and mood. His use of space was more fascinating than what you saw in the modern productions, as were the fluid slides from speech to song and chant, from roar to whisper.

After the standing ovation at the end, the actor said with tears in his eyes, "This is the first time I have travelled outside Bengal. I am overwhelmed by the respect you have shown me."

The artiste's response raised many questions about our attitudes to our folk arts. We dispersed in silence.

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