The Shillong Times

                                                                     Established 1945

Theatre of the Earth

SUNDAY JULY 27 2014

Jyotirmoy Prodhani on theatre patriarch H Kanhailal who was in Shillong to showcase his creativity

CELEBRATED THEATRE director Ratan Thiyam is known for creating ‘Theatre of Roots’, a term popularised by two contemporary theatre critics Suresh Awasthi and Richard Schechner. But Heisnam Kanhailal, the patriarch of modern Indian theatre from Manipur, calls his movement the ‘Theatre of the Earth’.

            He elaborated: “My theatre is that of the earth. It is essentially rooted in the earth and does not necessarily descend from heaven; it is informed by the accumulated wisdom that gathered from the earth, from here and now, our surroundings, our milieu. It intimately emanates from its own ecology, its own native landscape.”

Kanhailal added, “After all, not only art, even science has emerged from the earth. If one looks at life away from this reality, one is unceremoniously dislocated from his native ground. Even the social experiences of the individual and the community are actually solidified through its intimate linkages with the earth.”

            This understanding of theatre apparently inspired him to put up two of his earlier radical productions which redefined and destabilised the conventional notions of theatre space and theatre actors. Nupi Lan (War of Women of 1939) was first performed in 1989 marked a new beginning of Kanhailal’s repertoire. The play was performed in Ima Keithel (Mother’s Market), the famous all-women market of Imphal, and was performed by the women of the market themselves.

            About 10 years ago, he made a similar experiment with his 1979 play, Sanjennaha (cowherd), which he staged at the remote village of Umathel where the local Paite tribal villagers were the performers. He thus brought theatre to a reversed trajectory. Instead of people coming to theatre, theatre went to them to be a part of their own experience.

Kanhailal’s creative differences with Thiyam as a theatre director are pronounced and he is candid about his disagreement with his legendary compatriot. On Thiyam his observations are non-ambiguous. “Thiyam’s plays are fantastic, they make majestic theatrical presence and are superbly spectacular. It is a mindboggling visual treat. But for me theatre is not only about copious extravaganza, it is essentially about the intimate nuances, the raw earthy immediacy of experiences. This is what Theatre of Roots is all about,” he said.

            He had adapted one of his most powerful plays, Dopdi (2000) from Mahasweata Devi’s eponymous short story ‘Draupadi’. The story immediately drew his attention for it dealt with the theme of universal experience of human suffering and oppression. It is of an adivasi woman of Bengal, whose husband was killed in a fake encounter, and was raped by an army captain. H Savitiri, Kanhailal’s actor wife and who is a Padma Shree recipient like him, played the lead.

            But quite significantly the play turned out to be a premonition of a real life event in the history of Manipur. In Dopdi, the protagonist, takes off her clothes one by one and dares the army officer to rape her turning the defenceless naked body of her womanhood into the most powerful weapon of resistance and challenge. The play was a huge draw in the major Indian cities, but back home in Manipur it courted massive controversy. A section of women organisations of Imphal demanded the play be pulled out when the NGOs, mostly of the youths, wanted the play to continue. The play turned quite prophetic when a group of women came out on to the street, in front of the Kangla Fort, stripped naked, proclaiming “Indian Army rape us” to protest the killing and alleged rape of Thangjam Manorama by the 17 Sector Assam Rifles on 11 July 2004. Kanhailal received phone calls. The callers addressed him as Ching’ü, the foreseer.

            For Kanhailal theatre is essentially grounded with ideology and a deep-rooted social commitment. Theatre is not a detached art, it must become a voice for the voiceless, a means that gives the power to the disempowered to resist. From the vantage of such vision Kanhailal said: “Theatre must speak for the weak, the vulnerable and the voiceless. Or else what should theatre strive for? I am always obsessed with Jesus; he has been a constant inspiration for me. He has sacrificed himself for the weaker section of the people. Similarly, theatre too should act heroically like Spartacus who turned ordinary slaves into formidable soldiers to fight valiantly against the oppressive rule of the Roman oligarchy.”

            Pebet (1975) and Memoirs of Africa (1985) are two of his most celebrated productions which were recently performed during the Theatre Appreciation Course programme at NEHU, Shillong, with one of the first NSD graduates from Shillong, Lapdiang Artimai Syiem, as the force behind organising the event. Pebet is one of the earliest productions of Kanhailal that drew worldwide attention for the unique dramatic narrative that he invented as an alternative theatre idiom.

            Many critics including Rustom Bharucha categorised Kanhailal’s theatre as ‘Poor Theatre’ where the usual theatrical extravaganza is conspicuously missing. But despite such stark lack of opulence and their apparent destitution the impact is unmistakable, it is tangibly piercing and overwhelmingly potent. In both these performances it is the body of the actor that becomes the central source of power, the ultimate store house of theatrical energy. It is the superb manipulation and control of the body through which the story emanates with the force and impact of corporeal poetry.

            Kanhailal picked up the story of Pebet from a Manipuri folk tale which he improvised to tell a story of contemporary relevance. Pebet is a rare bird of Manipur, smaller than sparrow and the story is all about the mother pebet (performed with poetic grace by Sabitri) and her struggle to protect her broods from the vicious claws of a prying cat (brilliantly performed by Tombi). After several attempts the crafty cat manages to get hold of the youngest and weakest chick, indoctrinates it and reduces it into his veritable slave. The worried mother frenetically searches for her lost brood and slumps into a state of stupor visited by a nightmare where all her broods are lured by the proselytised chick into the trap of the mischievous cat. They are subjected to so much of atrocious subjugation that they even happily lick the arse of the cat, literally. But one of them protests and peels off parts of the buttock of the cat with the scrunching of his resolute teeth. The aberrant brood is then subjected to brutal torture by his own siblings at the instance of the cat. The cat even successfully entangles them in fratricidal violence against each other, who even go to the extent of attacking their own mother ironically chanting the Sanskrit phrase, janani janma bhumishya sargadapi garioyoshi (mother and the motherland are greater than even paradise). However, the proselytised broods recover from the state of their forced subservience and successfully come out of the diabolic clutch of the cat. Significantly, the whole drama has been a nightmare of the mother after the abduction of her youngest chic.

            The first thing that captivates the audience is the rhythm and poise of the performance that encapsulates every dramatic moment of the play, and more importantly, though the audience are not aware of the actual story that is to unfold yet, they soon realise that they are actually watching birds on stage though none of the actors would wear any improvised costume. In fact, there is no costume, no setting, no music, and no dialogue; there are only movements and the gradual unfolding of the story through their lyrical acts. The first major dramatic moment of pure brilliance occurs when the eggs of the mother pebet bursts open and the chicks come out of the shells.

            The entire episode is enacted not with any high-tech props or any special effect but with mere movements of their bare bodies and rhythmic verbal noise, “tet, tet, tet, tet…” In fact, “tet, tet, tet…” and “pebet, te tu” have been the recurring sounds in the play that form the central ‘dialogue’ to communicate the story to the audience, and for the audience they have no difficulty at all in understanding their moments of joy, fear, pain and anger presented through the periodic modulation of that basic noise, “tet, tet…” This is its biggest theatrical triumph.

            In the context of the battered political reality of the Northeast in general and of Manipur in particular the play becomes not only as one of the most significant and powerful critiques but also an extended metaphor of the internecine political violence and bankrupt ideology that have taken the entire region to ransom. One who is an insider and has suffered the morbid brutalities of militancy and its diabolic consequences in personal and community life can immediately identify with the characters and comprehend each move which has shown in the play as the trajectory leading to a horrendous degeneration of the very fundamentals of human values, the collapse of logic and the tragic crumbling of the age old ethos that used to ensure the sense of belongingness of the communities living in here as its native denizens.

            Memoirs of Africa is an outstanding achievement of H Sabitiri. Based on a poignant poem by L. Samarendra Singh, “Africagee Wakhanda Gee”, the play is a physical poetry in motion. The solo performance captures the most devastating experiences of human history across civilizations where the epochal turmoil of Africa transforms into a profound metaphoric trope to narrate the tale of universal human encounter with suffering and devastating repression. This has been one of the most accomplished performances of Sabitri where, through entirely non-verbal renditions, she has so vividly and energetically narrates man’s most shattering encounter with the tumultuous epochs of brutalities, overwhelming atrocities, betrayal and unspeakable carnage that scorched the pastoral innocence of life into searing landscape of parched nostalgia. The play is without dialogue, apart from occasional verbal noise with varied intonation there is hardly any other physical sound used in the play, not even music but the impact is overpoweringly tangible and intensely moving.

            As part of his mission to reach out to the communities in peripheries, Kanhailal has expanded his theatrical reach beyond the boundaries of Manipur. Assam and Tripura are two of his new theatre destinations. In Assam he has set up community theatre in the Rabha villages of Goalpara with talented NSD alumni Pabitra Rabha.

http://www.theshillongtimes.com/2014/07/27/theatre-of-the-earth/