PUSHING 80, Badal Sircar, legendary playwright and director, jokes that he can have no plans for the future, yet the core philosophy of what has famously come to be called his "Third Theatre" probably holds enough challenges to keep him busy till the very end.
As a young man in the 1940s, Sircar was restless, moving jobs from a private construction company to lectureships, and dabbling in Left politics. He then defied popular trends to leave behind his family and move to Europe where, sitting in the cheapest seats, he was exposed to myriad theatrical forms and styles. Although a professional town planner, Sircar was writing plays right from his thirties, and decided to turn to theatre seriously when he returned to India where many of his plays, often comedies, had already been staged.
Third Theatre
Describing his Third Theatre, Sircar notes that "first" theatre refers to popular folk art forms such as Yakshagana. Second theatre is "Victorian"; essentially Western theatre. His own theatre blends some elements of the other two, besides cultivating its own distinct feel.
It is often reductively described as 'street theatre'. Its advent in the 1970s marked a significant point of departure in Sircar's own career as a dramatist, hitherto existent within the framework of conventional indoor stage settings. Third Theatre or Free Theatre heralded a theatre intended for large audiences who could appreciate it paying only a minimal fee, if they paid one at all. Voluntary contributions could be made at the end of the play, but were often pre-empted by Panchayat funds or offers to be hosted.
By keeping the costs down, Sircar was making a larger point; that his theatre was meant to be appreciated by the diverse audiences (who famously sat through heavy rain and adverse weather since they were transfixed by the drama) flocking to performances of his itinerant troupe.
Actor as key
Despite his influences from various genres of theatre both in Europe where he lived many defining years eagerly soaking in the rich cultural spaces of London and Paris, and in West Bengal where he has lived most of his life, Sircar's theatre is distinctly his own. He is inevitably compared with, and has often acknowledged the influence on his work of, the radical Polish director Jerzy Grotowski whose transformation of the actor-audience relationship into an intense exchange of energy was undiluted by the superfluity of extravagant costume, set design or lights. Sircar too retains the minimal, choosing to focus on the actor's own body as a powerful tool by itself, in his theatre.
But he shies away from aligning too closely with any rigid genre, admitting differences even with Grotowski. "I have begged, borrowed and stolen from many sources," says Sircar, in his characteristic self-deprecating manner. "When I saw a Polish production of Grotowski's, my ideas were still in a nebulous form... but my theatre is quite distinct from his."
Subtractive training
Marking the distinction is the approach to training the actors. Sircar describes Western approaches as being 'additive', since they enrich the students with skills imparted by the teacher. His own acting workshops he describes, as having a 'subtractive' effect; "They subtract layers like onions, removing all the masks and conditioning imposed on us since we were children." Existing social norms compel us to behave in certain pre-defined ways with figures of authority, such as parents and teachers, explains Sircar, so that by the time we are adults we have learnt to artificially place ourselves in "better positions". "Our theatre," he emphasises, "should come from the inside. Every actor should feel the play has been written by them."
Sircar's free theatre often throws up the eternal debate questioning which is more important - form or content. "Content is primal," he says, almost pre-empting the question. "Form always follows content." And so his emphasis on the actor's body and minimalism on stage only serves to focus all attention where he has chosen to direct it: on the message. His emphasis on actor's training has strengthened the form of his theatre, preventing it from lapsing all too easily into a gnomic, sententious diatribe; it also entertains.
His plays, he says, are part of a counterculture, intending to expose media lies and Government untruths. Uncovering blatant lies and myths ("such as 'nuclear tests are safe and used for peaceful purposes'") through intense research, Sircar's plays are intended to catalyse social change.
In fact, content is so important to Sircar that he dismisses his stalwart position as director or actor, both roles which he has adopted so frequently and with huge success. "I am a playwright first," he says. "I began by acting, then I directed and that made me want to write my own plays. It's alright for a playwright to be a director but when director turns actor, his attention get diluted. Charles Chaplin of course directed and acted... but then, he's a genius!"
Sircar's plays are notorious for their lengthy gestation period: often taking up to nine months before they are complete. Ever his self-effacing self, he is quick to point out what could be seen as limitations - that its long evolution process means he can never react to specific happenings or daily politics. "It's painfully slow to prepare a play, so we can't do it immediately like an agit-prop group; we have to select enduring themes which cannot change."
One such theme is that exploring the predicament of a middle-class man in his seminal play, Evam Indrajit. Written fairly early on in his career, it was initially performed in a conventional indoor setting, highlighting the existential angst of his protagonist who reflected the preoccupations of an entire generation growing up in newly Independent India.
For the poor
When he turned to theatre for the poor, Sircar knowingly renounced the possibility of a professional theatre troupe. He remarks that theatre for the poor cannot be done professionally. There is simply no money in it, and this need further necessitates the minimalism of form. "It has to be love's labour," Sircar says wistfully, but brightens up to add, "But then you get the most honest of actors, the best elements of society! They won't even go to television if a role is offered to them!"
HEMANGINI GUPTA
