For a theatre culture

Theatre means communicating, and communicating to large number of people. It does not mean that it has to become something like a circus.

The Fault, dear Brutus, is not in our Stars, But in our Selves that we are Underlings.

- Cassius, in Shakespeare's, Julius Caesar.

THE National School of Drama (NSD) has just concluded its annual National Theatre Festival in New Delhi, in which, for the first time, it did not bring in groups that had been presented earlier, but invited new groups so that audiences would have an opportunity to see the kind of talent that exists outside the established ones and the groups themselves would get an opportunity to perform before audiences used to seeing the very best groups present immaculately mounted plays.

There were, of course, exceptions; but as we all know, rules make sense only when there are exceptions. And so there was a fine play presented by Naseeruddin Shah and his wife Ratna Pathak Shah, a high point of the festival. The NSD deserves to be congratulated on putting together such a varied and interesting number of performances, which were presented right from 3 p.m. to late in the night, and at a variety of spaces ranging from the open-air theatres inside the NSD to the grand, rather daunting, Kamani auditorium.

It is, of course, easy to carp and whine about any such event, and many do so as they believe, quite foolishly, that it makes them appear a little more knowledgeable, a bit above the rest. But on one point there certainly was general agreement - the lack of publicity given to such a major event. Much slighter functions are announced with pomp in the press and even on television; the festival was not announced, and it was as if there was a conscious attempt not to tell people that a major theatre event was going on.

I believe someone in the NSD said that they did this because they wanted to see how committed Delhi audiences were to theatre, since only those really interested would take the trouble of finding out what was showing where and watching it. If this is true - I find it hard to believe - it is a monumentally foolish thing to say and do. And it is symptomatic of what really ails theatre today.

The Naseeruddin Shah play was performed, as one would expect, to a packed house; but then this was the one play which the press did write about. More from the Naseeruddin Shah angle than anything else, but that was only to be expected; the man is a celebrity and the local press wanted a story about him rather than the play he was presenting. But that was the exception, again. I was told that a Marathi play presented at the festival - a well-directed and acted one, by all accounts - had an audience of precisely four people. I myself was a part of an audience of not more than 30 people for one particular play. All right, it was presented on the evening of the live telecast of the Cricket World Cup final - but, by the time the play started, Australia had made 356 for 2, the Indian batting had begun to collapse and the match was clearly over. It did mean a trickle of downcast people coming in just before the play started, but even so, there were pitifully few who finally came to see what was, all said and done, a fascinating play called Pinky and Asha Mary, an adaptation of Jean Genet's The Maids.

But, having whined about the lack of publicity that the Festival was given, let us look at a more abiding reason for the small crowds and a general lack of interest in theatre, which is making it more and more of an esoteric exercise by the initiated performed for the initiated, a sort of ritual done by strange sects such as the Branch Davidians in the United States, the members of which were gunned down when they attacked a police unit.

THEATRE is one of the performing arts, and like any performing art form, it needs audiences to sustain it. Audiences will not come unless what they see fascinates, enthrals and enthuses them, apart from enriching their perceptions and doing good to their souls. And that is precisely what they do not get from most of the plays performed, the plays commonly termed `meaningful' or `serious'. Theatre is seen as the preserve of a cultural elite, who perform for themselves, and in doing so drift into forms and modes of presentations that become more and more esoteric. Some of those who do this consciously keep contacts with people in high places and get funds to put these odd happenings on stage. But only a few can; the rest have to remain content with makeshift sets and costumes, and play in run-down halls and basement theatres. And the audience is, as I said, mostly people from other theatre groups.

And whose fault is it? Not that of the public; there is no truth in the comforting sentiment that people just do not care about theatre. It is the theatre people themselves. Those involved with theatre today seem to have moved away from trying to get more and more people to see their plays to an obsession with the working out, on a stage, of all manner of events.

I had the misfortune of seeing one play where the cast was, with perhaps one exception, drunk; and another where the two actors, a man and a woman, were either assuming strange positions on stage or leaping at, clawing, stroking and pushing each other for no obvious reason. I was told, patiently, that it had to do with being conscious of one's body, of the energy that flowed from it, about expressing oneself through movement and a whole lot of stuff of the same kind. It is done abroad, in Germany and France, and Poland, and, for all I know, in Greenland, but there they can afford to indulge themselves in all kinds of things. Like exhibiting a dead foetus at an art exhibition. Somehow they find the money for it, or the state funds them generously. But must we do it because they do? Forgive me for being old-fashioned, but I believe it is this that drives people away from theatre.

Theatre means communicating, and communicating to large number of people. It does not mean that it has to become something like a circus (though it would certainly benefit from some of the elements of energy and rhythm that circuses have). We do have commercial theatre in Kolkata and Mumbai, which draws large crowds and makes enough money for producers and everyone else. But that is a kind of dumbing down that one can avoid, because that theatre too has lost itself in its single-minded obsession with money.

The plain fact is that people like going to the theatre; they do it in cities across the world where there are brilliant, spectacular films being shown, where there is ballet and there are vaudeville shows and nightclubs and all kinds of diversions. In such cities tickets for plays have to be booked not days but months ahead; some plays like The Phantom of the Opera have been playing for years. Successful plays do run for months together, on Broadway in London, and many other cities, and there is no reason to assume they will not here in India. Long runs mean financial health, yes (with some infusion of public funds from the state), but it really means more people get to see them. And that, finally, is what good theatre has to be about, an experience that the performers and the audience share with each other. It has to be about an experience which a playwright can capture because of his or her heightened perception and knowledge of what works on stage, which actors find fulfilling and rewarding, and which common men and women can understand, absorb, appreciate, and, finally, applaud.