Intimate Theatre – a Festival and a Fair

Kolkata was treated to two back to back intimate theatre festivals recently, one organized by Bibhaban (15^th to 19^th November, 2017), their 16^th such event (in collaboration with Proscenium Art Center and at that venue), and the other by Paschimbanga Natya Academy (Natyamela) at Tripti Mitra Sabhaghar (25^th November to 4^th December, 2017). Around thirty plays were performed in less than a month, testifying to the fact that both theatre makers and the audience are taking a lively interest in intimate theatre. Kaahon followed both events quite closely in the hope to make sense of the interest in the form and also to take critical stock of some of the performances.

Previous Kaahon Theatre Review:

It is necessary, right at the outset, to indicate the critical understanding of intimate theatre that Kaahon has brought to bear upon its viewing of the many performances. It is perhaps easy to state what proscenium theatre is, but not quite so in the case of intimate theatre. This is perhaps because the form is still evolving through many an experiment and innovation.  One who is planning to do intimate theatre today can borrow intellectual capital from the ideas, among others, of Strindberg, Antonin Artaud, Grotowski and Badal Sircar while attempting to place ones’ performances in the tradition of Kirtan, Leto Gaan, Alkap, Kathakatha, Theatre in the round, Free Theatre etc. Site-specific Intimate theatre today is seeking out performance locations not built for theatre, such as the living room of an old mansion or a coffee shop or even such fascinating places such as a running or stationary taxi or an abandoned train compartment. Though intimate theatre can take various shapes, we wish to emphasize three characteristics vital to mark out a performance as intimate – a very close proximity of performer and audience, a numerically small audience and, made possible as a result of these factors, the generation of an interactive communication between performer and audience. Proscenium tries to create an illusion of reality, distances the audience from the performer, allowsonly a one-way communication where performer is the sole maker of meaning of which the audience remains a passive receiver. Intimate theatre, using not much paraphernalia and keeping an involved audience at the level of performance, attempts to create a performance protocol that is clearly non-proscenium.

But unfortunately, many of the performances showcased at the two festivals could not quite earn the intimate tag. Broadly speaking, we came across three categories of plays. First, there were productions that were plain weak shows, such as ‘Ha Ja Ba Ra La’ by Sainthia Wake-up, ‘Trashanu’ by Rongoshirsho (at Bibhaban festival) and ‘Abishwaser Bastab’ by Howrah Jonaki (Natyamela). Second, there were a number of performances that seemed fit for the proscenium or an open space and not for the intimate space offered by a room. This was due to the fact that when such plays, designed for other performance arenas, were brought inside the confines of a room, not much attention was paid to explore the possibilities and meet the demands thrown up by the intimate nature of the space. In this list will figure Ayena’s ‘Singhamukh’, Sampratik’sAshani ‘Sanket’, Zed Theatre’s ‘Shunyota’ (all three were performed at both festivals), Pushpak’s ‘Rakha Hari Allah Rakha’, Prosthan’s ‘The Lesson’, Halisahar Sanskritik’s ‘Ucched’, Sahityika’s ‘Rather Roshi’ and AmraSobuj’s ‘Kleptomania’ (Natyamela). Rwitam’s ‘Bidushok’ attempted to approximate the intimate form, even though this play can be easily performed in other spaces. Kaahon has already written extensively about Hatibagan Sangharam’s ‘Udorniti’ elsewhere; it was mentioned that this play is proscenium-possible. It must be said, however, that ‘Udorniti’ remains a very satisfying watch mainly because the text is finely written, the narrative is tautly structured, the acting is refined and light and music have been used with intelligent care. Thirdly, there were a few productions that met the demands of intimate theatre, though not all the productions were of the same quality. The focus will now be on such performances.

‘Amake Dekhun’ by Candid Theatre is definitely intimate theatre. But what damages the production is its light design whereby only flashlights are used, which become somewhat gimmicky and not quite signifying. In some parts, the acting is painfully weak. Oglam in their performance attempted to convey the tantric myth of Kali assuming her Digambari form, with a contemporary narrative woven into the texture of the ancient. Once outside the proscenium, it becomes possible to be free of the firm control of the written text – this performance, with its emphasis on improvisation, explored that possibility somewhat. But the production had its share of weaknesses. The costume of the protagonist and the mixing of English and Bengali seemed quite pointless. The use of projected images just did not work. Bibhaban performed two plays – ‘Confessions’ and ‘Black Coffee’. Conceptually, ‘Confessions’ is out and out intimate where the audience was roped in to actually ‘perform’. Eyes blindfolded, the audience listened to a performer’s confession and then were invited to present their own confessions. This merits some consideration. If theatre is a live performance, why should the audience not participate in giving the performance life? This is what Badal Sircar thought and he consistently argued in favour of a theatre in which the audience too produced meaning. Because proscenium would not allow this, one needed intimate theatre, third theatre. By allowing the audience to perform and generate meaning, Bibhaban empowered the audience and, rather commendably, showed a bold willingness to fulfill one of the cardinal demands of the intimate theatre form. The spirit of improvisation marking the Baul song used and the picture that was painted was interesting. However, the makers can think of giving more structure to the performance, which began with some promise but then somewhat fizzled out. Plot may well be dispensed with, but there can still remain a sense of narrative progression and closure. ‘Black Coffee’, a production with hundred plus runs over the last decade, does not require much commentary. It remains a powerful performance blending realism with hyper-realismand buttressed by extremely competent acting. Written and first produced in the wake of the Singur and Nandigram agitations over governmental land-grabbing, the politics of the play is quite sharply defined, though some effort may be given to consider whether the sharpness has dulled to some extent over time and whether the political stance needs some revision.

‘Minus Zero Plus – Plus Zero Minus’ by Alternative Living Theatre (Natyamela) was easily the most thought-provoking performance witnessed. When the play began a series of shrouded dead bodies were seen lying motionless on the floor, with a human voice sounding in the background in an unearthly wail.  When after quite some time a corpse moved, stood up and began to be mobile, followed by another and then another, we realized that these were not corpses at all. One arrived at this realization by thinking about the unfolding performance and it was here that the performance became intimate, having drawn in the audience within its zone on the thread of thought. The play has no plot, no character as we know it, no language. The performers made some meaning with bodily gestures, movements and sounds –the rest of the meaning was left to the audience to make as per their own understanding, thereby doing away with the generation of a monolithic meaning. The meaning that reached us combined with whatever meaning we could create gave us a performance attempting to outline the contours of the development of human ‘civilization’, the birth of human ‘consciousness’. We found here hints of formation of social bonds through recognition of similarities/differences, the growth of sexual consciousness (reminding us of Freud), the search of self through mirror images (inevitably taking us to Lacanian mirror-stage theory), the emergence of a dead god at the instigation of time (Nietzsche, Heidegger?), the splitting and diverging of individuals, societies and nations as a result of privately owning wealth and resources (Engels and Marx). The performers, who through their skilled and focused performances brought to life abstract notions and complex theoretical formulations, deserve unqualified praise. It was their execution that did not allow the performance to crush us under its weight. This performance proved how liberating an experience it can be for both maker and audience to move out of the large space of the proscenium, of language, of plot and into the much smaller, space of intimate theatre marked by a unique performance language.

The last play that we will look at is ‘Sarbashi’ by Young Natya Goshthi from Suri, Birbhum district (Natyamela). Written by Arnab Mukherjee and directed by Satyajit Das, this play presented a slice of life of tribal people inhabiting the Bengal –Jharkhand/Bihar border areas. This was entirely successful intimate theatre, having met formal requirements. The audiences, made to sit in the middle while the performance took place all around them, were immediately drawn within the performance. All four sides of the performance zone were utilized, with care taken to ensure that the audience did not miss out much while action was on at the back and the sides. The back and one side were repeatedly used to convey a sense of distance, as in sequences where people came singing and dancing from afar or where something was happening in a village some distance away. Again, the proximity of the audience on the left side was exploited to deliver with great clarity the intimate softness of a love-making sequence or the visceral rawness of a fight. Samrat Mukherjee’s use of light and darkness was quite brilliant. In a sequence where the protagonist had entered a dense forest at night, a dullish glow from a flashlight lit up his visage, while keeping the rest of the room in darkness, thereby brining to life a forest adventure by gloomy moonlight. Moreover, the paly of light and darkness suggested throughout the performance the sense of fear and mystery. During the course of the play it was impossible to guess that none of the performers were actually non-tribal. They did not merely act, but had internalized the tribal manner of speech and movement. If the makers of the play devise imaginative ways of augmenting audience-involvement, this already very satisfying performance will be further enriched.

The performances at the two festivals clearly suggest that many are choosing the intimate theatre form more out of extraneous considerations (such as unavailability of proscenium stage or financial crunch) than out of any serious commitment to the form’s aesthetics and politics. There is no harm doing intimate theatre out of contingency, but one has to fulfill the formal requirements of the intimate. And, the tendency to stage in an intimate space a play designed for other spaces without bringing about the necessary alterations is best avoided. Most performances at the Bibhaban festival started much later than the scheduled time; they will certainly need to look into this matter. As they do, we will look into something else. One evening, Natyamela saw an Alkap performance is taking place on an open-air stage while at the same time a performance was ‘on’ inside the Tripti Mitra Sabhaghar that was best performed under an open sky. There are indigenous performance forms, which are intimate theatre in nature, or something very close to its spirit. Hopefully, such performances will be included in government or private intimate theatre festivals in future.

(P.S. – Kaahon apologetically regrets the fact that some performances could not be mentioned because Kaahon was not present during the shows).

Dipankar Sen
A student of theatre as an art practice, he is definitely a slow (but hopefully, steady) learner. He is a father, a husband and a teacher of English literature in the West Bengal Education Service. His other interests include literature in translation and detective fiction.

with assistance from Srijayee Bhattacharjee