If I had my way, I will request everyone to perform Jyotiba Phule’s play, Tritiya Ratna (1865). The play breaks with the past and challenges caste conservatism. Phule was the master of dialogue as a vehicle of his reform project.
If I had my way, I would remind all national theatrewallahs what Umashankar Joshi said, that he was an Indian writer writing in Gujarati.
If I had my way, plays would have an expiry date labelled on their foreheads.
If I had my way, I would put a cd-player in the tummy of each and every actor, and I would permit them to talk, only, after pressing the ON button.
If I had my way, I would have a two-minute silence before every show in order to express my sympathy with the impoverishment of art in India.
If I had my way, I would ask of Lorca, why does he discomfit his reader? Almost all his characters live in the presence of death.
If I had my way, all playwrights would be gifted with a dog called Audience, who would hear out first drafts, and then Audience would wag its tail when thrilled or bark in displeasure.
If I had my way, I would ban floral tributes in the theatre. Since flowers have neither characters nor complexities.
If I had my way, I would set an appointment with George Bernard Shaw and help him understand love. Shaw, it must be said has not the remotest conception of love. There is no genuine real love affair in his plays. He belittles Caesar’s love affair – and Caesar besides being an honourable man, is part of the greatest passion in history. Then Shaw divests Cleopatra of grandeur and degrades her into an insignificant flapper.
If I had my way, I would tell anyone who uses the word Gochi; how Sadanand Rege’s play Gochi retrieved this word in colloquial Marathi, after it had been found missing for a long time.
If I had my way, I would commission a vague, clever sort of play about everything. After all, we have become generalisers, and very rarely creative thinkers.
If I had my way, I would form a guild of producers. Above all, the theatre needs producers to produce our cheap, shabby, half visible, half audible, drama methods. Which is what, Bollywood is about. But Bollywood has Salman Khan and Rohit Shetty.
If I had my way, I would provide death beds to all. We are all in our death beds in any case. Some are seven-eights dead. Others, especially, eminent actors are dying all the time. Personally, I believe we must walk to the electric crematorium and lie down. It will be a huge time saving device. Unless, it becomes very popular and there are queues to collect earth-leaving certificates.
If I had my way, I would produce a two-act play. Act One: Mussolini, the journalist would interview Aristide Briand, the French Premier. And Act Two: Mussolini, now the Prime Minister would be talking down to Briand, the Premier. Rivetting and true, no? Speaking of which, HG Wells had a longish tete a tete with Stalin in which Wells spoke about free expression of opinion. He was rebutted by Stalin who said, “We Bolsheviks call it ‘self criticism’. And it is widely practised in USSR.” To which Wells sighed, and the interview was declared, over.
If I had my way, I would translate Shakespeare into Tulu. Because even a poor translator of Shakespeare is much better known than an original inventor of ideas.
If I had my way, I would begin a school of playwrights. It would be modelled on the Elizabethans and Jacobians and it would have a clever title such as and / and / and.
If I had my way, I would want to see a play that is truly realistic. Unfortunately, that term is used loosely on the stage where most of the so-called realistic plays deal only with the appearance of things. A truly realistic play deals with what might be called the soul of the characters. Strindberg’s DANCE OF DEATH, perhaps? It deals with that thing which makes the character that person and no other.
If I had my way, I would enquire of the bourgeois culture which invented the spinning handloom, the steam engine, the book, as to how their inventions have withstood the battering ram of change.
If I had my way, I would de-iconise Prem Chand. Instead of him, we shall honour the memory of his characters like Horus in eastern UP who still suffers pain, humiliation and destitution. We could also honour the Ghisus, who drink so that they can forget their wretched condition.
If I had my way, everyone would be forced to read the shabdha sadhana of Muktibodh, in a day and age in which words have been hijacked by politics, media, cricket commentators, and the true writer has become his own enemy.
If I had my way, I would base my life on Eugene O Neill, son of an actor, a Princetonian, a gold miner, a sailor, an actor, a poet, and may be even a playwright. All this at age, thirty three. O’Neill was prevented by his doctors from attending the Noble Prize presentation principally because the state of his health, which was damaged by overwork.
If I had my way, I would base my life on Faiz, whose mother tongue was Punjabi, and was a teacher, military officer, journalist, freedom fighter, poet, poet prisoner, and person in exile. When asked about his birthday, he replied, “how does it matter. In those days there were no birthday celebrations with cake and candle. But my mother remembers the day clearly. She says, ‘the day I was born, it rained’.”
If I had my way, I would stage plays in the large village of Meriganj in Purnea where Phanishwar Nath Renu set his novel Maila Aanchal. I would try to entertain Kamala, Darogha, and Ramapiyirya, who are tied up with the hazardous enterprise of living. With malaria and kala azar. With Santhals who rebel against the tehsildar. With lives warped that seeks Swaraj, still.
If I had my way, I would request Nirmal Verma to attend a show of his stories being performed by thespians. Amalya’s friendless tale would be enacted like a Tendulkar play, and other stories about loneliness, love dried up, separations would be impeccably staged until Verma would say, “these are strangers”. To each other. To you. To me.
If I had my way, I would ban the word, parampara. We may not want to become a suburb of the USA, but then neither should we remain a shanty. We may want to preserve our soul, but what about an unhealthy, unhappy mind.
If I had my way, I would remind critics that the best examples of Total Theatre are not Artaud, Brecht, Peter Brook, Grotowoski, but THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and LION KING which have entertained millions of theatre audiences. And earned millions of dollars.
If I had my way, I would want to bring Sartre and Tagore face to face with each other, in the after-life. Sartre would say, “Hell is other people”. And Tagore would exclaim, “So is heaven”.
If I had my way, I would initiate a national debate on, is the theatre a discipline or a profession? Or is it a service or manufacturing industry with a growth rate?
If I had my way, I would invoke Kedarnath Singh’s poem which quirkily leaves the pages of a slim tattered volume of poems and springs into action while the poet is imploring it to return. I would search for that poem. I would file a FIR and report. Poem missing. Description: words, words, words.
If I had my way, actors would be fit with a heel. Even Achilles is insufferable without his heel.
If I had my way, I would introduce Srikant Verma’s poems as part of National History. The poet names the kingdoms of Magadha, Kosala, Kasi and reflects on life and death. Perhaps it is not history but all human predicaments. In that sense, WAITING FOR GODOT and ENDGAME should be presented as history. The history of human suffering.
If I had my way, I would like Shombhu Mitra to expand on what he meant when he said, “existentialist pangs of the horrors of nothingness have to be digested with Mahayana Buddhism … and the writers who imbibe Nagarjuna will not be at a loss either in the presence of Beckett or Kafka.”
If I had my way, men of genius would be funded with special interests. You see, Shakespeare would never have re-written HAMLET or OTHELLO or ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, if Lord Southhampton had not given him 1000 Pounds. Speaking of Shakespeare, the popular taste of his day was worse than ours. His worst play, TITUS ANDRONICUS was most popular, given hundreds of times in his life, whereas HAMLET was only given 12 times, and KING LEAR, once or twice.
If I had my way, I would introduce QC labs and ISO 90014 certification in the theatre. That way plays would be benchmarked and there would be no counterfeiting of bad plays.
If I had my way, I would enforce compulsory viewing of MUDRA RAKSHASA for MPs in the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and Tihar Jail.
If I had my way, I would let it known that Henrik Ibsen’s plays GHOSTS which is about the children of syphilitic parents is actually called GJENGANGERE in Norwegian. This means, those who comes again.
If I had my way, I would suppress biographic details about all theatre people. The thing is, the more and more, the public is fascinated in artists, the less and less, it is devoted about the arts.
If I had my way, I would photocopy the text of 16th century, Eknathi Bhagwat, every time someone gave me a lecture on Brechtian theories of distancing or alienation.
If I had my way, I would ensure that the aim of theatre is theatre. The thing is, the work of theatre is to dominate the audience. Not once must the audience be permitted to dominate the theatre. TV serials are an exception to this rule, where the public is appeased. And look where the TV serials are..
If I had my way, I would eliminate apartheid from theatre. That is, the apartheid of ticket pricing which prevents millions of poor from enjoying a good play.
If I had my way, I would conclude with a bit of Mangalesh Dabral. His four line Hindi poem says:
Some words scream
Some take off their clothes
And barge into history
Some fall silent
