|
Metro Plus
Fostering Punjabi flavour
|
Trained at the National School of Drama, Neelam Mansingh Chowdhury's 17-year old `The Company' has been recreating Western classics for the theatre lovers of Punjab.
|
"PUNJABI IS generally perceived as the language of truck drivers, dhabawalas and clowns. The elite old guard and the yuppy-puppy generation of Punjabis themselves prefer to speak in English rather than their mother tongue,'' laughs theatre director Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry, as she explains what an uphill task it was to establish a Punjabi theatre in Chandigarh as she did 17 years ago.
Her `The Company'' has come a long way since then, evolving its own highly visual and strongly musical stylistics. It has made a name for itself with productions of Western classics — from the Greek masters to Racine and Lorca - refracted through the rumbustious, extrovert culture of the Land-of-the-Five-Rivers.
Somewhat ruefully, Neelam adds that she herself had only a tenuous relationship with her mother tongue until her husband's job took the couple back to her home State in 1984. ``I shed my affected convent school diction and learnt to read and write Punjabi. I call myself twice born, you know!"
During a break in rehearsal at the Museum Theatre, Chowdhry said that she was delighted to be performing in Chennai for the first time. No, the language was no barrier as ``An Unposted Love Letter'' which opened the Other Festival, was a bilingual (English/Punjabi) adaptation of Doris Lessing's short story.
In any case, Chowdhry sees the verbal element as only a part of the total theatre experience. Reactions to subtitling her plays at venues abroad were mixed. Some found them distracting. Others said linguistic translations were unnecessary for productions so visually and aurally evocative. Then there were the two girls in Britain who were flabbergasted to realise that they had bought tickets - not for an English play - but one in a language they had never heard of. After the show, they confessed that not understanding the spoken word had been an advantage in relating to the dense subtext.
For Chowdhry herself, linguistic recovery has also been an artistic journey; because, though trained at the National School of Drama and long associated with thespian B.V. Karanth in Bhopal, she realised that her sense of the theatre really came from her relationship with her mother tongue, ``as language is also mood, intuition, dream, emotional and cultural history, racial memory."
Initial response in her State was lukewarm. ``In fact, people assumed that we were doing English theatre, particularly as our plays were largely from the West.''
Why? Because she finds few Indian plays answering her creative needs. ``I don't like anything wordy or too realistic.'' A notable exception was ``Nagamandala'' with its openness, suggestive power and multi-layered potential for interpretation. ``Why can't Girish Karnad be more prolific?'' she sighs.
Regional theatre has found a more responsive climate since the 1990s. But some perceptions remain unchanged. Chowdhry may have been acclaimed in international venues but her group travels by train, second class and is lodged in middle level hotels; whereas it is flight and five star comfort for Naseeruddin Shah's and Rajat Kapur's theatre groups, who toured Kolkata at the same time as her company did. Payments match this perception. Chowdhry's productions require colourful pageantry, and she wants to ensure that company members are well paid. But she is aware that ``We are creating the future for our theatre. And limitations spur creativity, challenge the imagination.''
Convinced that theatre has to be regional, vernacular and local to be universal in import and impact, Chowdhry was happy to find and include traditional naqqals in her company. These itinerant actors skilled in the use of folk music, dance and acrobatics for burlesque/satire, added a new dimension to the evolution of her aesthetics. ``The Natyashastra talks of a theatre company as a kutumb,'' she recalls. ``Our Company is very much a family, most of us have been together since the start, for 17 years,'' she says with pride. "I prefer the classics, they remain resonant even in translation into other tongues, other performance styles.'' But what about her reliance on music? Is it not sometimes a distraction? ``I choose plays with an inbuilt element of music. I don't take Chekhov and turn it into a musical! Whether in ``Rashomon'' or ``Holi", I believe music enriches the theatre experience.''
Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry's final words are, ``I'm back in Chennai with ``Kitchen Katha'' next February. Big cast, lots of fun. Don't forget to come.'' No surprise to realise that, for a committed theatre artiste, the show remains more important than any exchange of words off the stage.
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
|
