Much ado about nothing?

Much ado about nothing?

We went to watch a play earlier this week. Like for a film, selecting a play to watch also requires some home work in my family. But association of Urmil Kumar Thapliyal with the play, the Girish Karnad of Hindi theatre, was attraction enough to pull me to the auditorium although it has been several years since I have watched a play in the city. Moreover it was a comedy.

Playwright and performer late Mr Thapliyal had worked for the revival of nautanki style of theatre all his life and he presented it with an urban touch. He expressed his brilliant hold over satire in Hindi with plays including Harishchandra ki Ladai (Harishchandra’s fight) Hey Brecht, Abu Hasan, Octopus and Sooraj Kahan se Ugta hai (Where does the sun rise from) etc. He was honoured with many prestigious awards.

The time given was 7.00 p.m. and because entry was free, we went well ahead of time to be able to get good seats. The air-conditioner was working fine and the seats were comfortable. The hall slowly started to fill up with people of various sizes, shapes and age trooping in. The hands of the watch moved beyond 7.00 yet the gate remained open for nearly 15 more minutes, and people kept coming in. Even after the gate was closed, some seemingly sincere theatre-lovers trickled in without any guilt, stumbling on the tricky step at the door as they got in and moved their eyes all around the hall looking for vacant seats.

I was reminded of the decorum/protocol followed in theatres at other places. I recalled several times as the second bell rang announcing the beginning of the play, the doors of Rang Shankara in Bangalore would be shut. Keeping to the time was sacred. Even government and political bigwigs could not get in after a play had started.

This play was a part of the five day programme being held in the memory of late Mr Thapliyal. No wonder then that in keeping with the custom in our country, it began with the chief guest and the guests of honour paying ‘floral tributes’ to the late actor and the lighting of the lamp.

Not leaving it at that, the organisers asked the chief guest to say a few words. I suppose ‘a few’ conjures up a different number and amount in the minds of different people. Besides, I would have loved it, had he told us about the works of late Mr Thapliyal or Hindi theatre, but the reed-thin bureaucrat in a beige safari suit and with hennaed hair, rasped on for a full twenty minutes about what as a sahityakar (litterateur) he had penned. His recitation of his creations which sounded more like poor rhyming of words in the name of shayari (urdu poetry) and his continuous maine yek likha (I wrote this) made many among the audience, including of course me, groan at the disrespect to the memory of the thespian and sheer waste of everyone’s time. Yet I guess the speaker must have felt great when he went to bed that night for he had enlightened all of us ignorant souls about his impressive literary efforts.

Nobody asked us to switch off our cell phones so is it anybody’s fault that a woman in the row ahead of mine kept connecting and disconnecting calls on her mobile all the time? I recalled how once several years ago during the staging of Salgirah (anniversary), Anupam Kher had stopped the play when a cell phone rang and the actors had threatened to leave the stage if a cell phone rang again.

In my heart I was pleased that there were no toddlers and curious or impatient children among the spectators.

Unfortunately, the play was nothing to write home about. Don’t get me wrong. The plot was great, a satire about keeping up appearances/keeping up with the Joneses and how one lie can spiral into a big problem. The main actor was great and two others were also rather good. In fact they seemed to have shouldered the whole act by themselves. But the rest of the cast was loud and unimpressive, making the whole experience underwhelming. You might doubt my sense of humour here because several among the audience were laughing out loud at what I thought were pedestrian jokes and then it dawned on me why some television series which some of us even refuse to acknowledge, are so popular.

Back in the car all four of tried to shift the blame on the other for not getting up and leaving.

So, why didn’t we just get up and leave, you might ask. I’d say out of respect for theatre. We all know any performing art -music, dance, theatre, even acrobatics and sports, is presented live and is very different from films. There are no retakes, cinematography or editing and you see the whole performance live. Moreover, the financial conditions of theatre artists are very poor and they have no big production houses to back their efforts like in the case of movies. Unlike film stars who have large fan followings who keep track of what is happening in their idols’ lives and chase them, theatre actors lead quiet lives as people unknown outside of their field. It is not surprising then that most of the people nurturing thoughts of socialism and equality become stage actors and lead very unglamorous lives. 

Sadly, when I came back home and googled Hindi theatre in Lucknow, it showed only movie theatres.

Some of us forget that watching a play or a music programme is not like watching a movie. In a movie hall one is encouraged to chew on popcorn or other things and slurp their drink loudly. People around us tolerate if we pass food along or across rows of seats, pre-empt the dialogues, sing songs along, clap or wolf-whistle. There is no dress code and not many rules of etiquette in India cinema halls. Yet everyone wears formal clothes to go to an opera, theatre or musical theatre in Europe. Why most of the people even wear black for the occasion.

Once we saw that a junior colleague’s wife was asked to leave the cinema hall in Berlin when she brought her few months old daughter along to watch a Hindi film. The authorities said the loud noise could cause damage to the child’s hearing and the air-conditioning blast could make her ill.

I had once asked a small time local singer how he felt when people started chatting as he was singing or servers began bringing snacks during a programme. He said it hurt at first but slowly he got used to it. He also said that he sang light music, so he did not mind people drinking during the performance as he wanted them to loosen up and enjoy their time.

If I were a performer I would be distracted by people stuffing their faces with masala peanuts, vegetable pakoras, oily spring rolls, chicken tikka or phis phry/phinger (fish fry or fish fingers as fish sticks are called) while I sang or danced before a crowd. Thank God for small mercies, I can do neither and all of you are also spared the agony of watching me perform on stage.

                                                                                       -Anupama S Mani