Bangladesh: Contemporary Theatre trends

Shafi Ahmed
	Only some two or three years ago, a question iriteted all theatre practitioners and theatre-lovers in Bangladesh. It was rather a concern. People, more precisely, the audience had been consistently relaying a decreasing interest in theatre. Hollow seats inside the auditorium gave a depressingly strange look. Some groups even thought of ooncelling the shows. The impact was naturally not united to this awful apparent look, it really started creating cramps in the spinal chord of theatre activities. However, since Bangladesh theatre has never developed as something 'professional' in the widely accepted sense of the term, our theatre activists never allowed any negative idea to settle within themselves, they never thought of 'giving in. Anyway, all kinds of diagnosis were conducted. Different views were pronounced as to this state of concern in theatre. In fact, a group organised a round table conference of theatre-workers and critics to find out the reasons of ailment. Naturally, diverse opinions were voiced. The factors and conditions that gave the primary blood to the nervous system of our theatre were recalled. Strong observations were made noting that Bangladesh theatre rose and developed with its very positive commitment to bring about social changes, with a mission of practicing cultural exercises through theatre arts to uphold the secular and democratic and pro-people structure of the society. And since the very visible and touchable aspects of the present-day society show marks of decay as against a 'good' society characterised by care and concern for human rights and development, theatre is bound to go through a 'shock' period and no imposing therapy can offer the answer. Theatre has to create or rather reestablish its own place with its own strength. The aggressive advent of TV and the digital media was identified as an important area to create problems for us. But from a self-critical point of view, we also sought to find out that whether we could properly rise up to the occasion, whether we had failed to produce something that could respond to people's cultural needs. Another exceptional development characterized our theatre in the 80's. Under the impact of movement of the political parties, politicization of themes to be represented on the stage became sharpened to a degree which often theatre aesthetics does not approve. Many short plays were composed and performed under the category of street theatre, in which intellectual and affiliatory fixation could be so easily and often crudely identified. The concept of street theatre, of course, intellectually concerns itself with a kind protest that addresses the immediacy of purpose. But our experience says that it also costed us much, it was gained (or aimed) at the expense of art. And not unnaturally, this somehow found some entrance in our mainstream, I mean, the metropolitan theatre. Presentation of some plays on the stage became sometimes so loud that a question of propriety was legitimately raised. And again, all credit goes to the thinking theatre ­workers of Bangladesh who rightly became aware of the impending dangers in such moves. And at the same time, some newer political development took place that effected a moderation in such exercises. Theatre workers tried to become self­ conscious as well as self-critical so that a positive rethinking is invested behind new productions. As a result, Bangladesh audience started to experience something different. It was not an unusual departure and the political overtones never left the stage, not that they always should. And the series of socio-political development led to a kind of polarization that had a tendency to become sharper to encounter some threats for the values for which the nation fought their war of liberation and won it at the cost of three million lives. Politics, with its less explicit but more implicit connotation retains its place in our theatre and we want to value it with commendations since the war was fought to build up or rather strengthen a secular society that guarantees human rights. It is certainly a reality that things are not in fair shape in Bangladesh for some decades. Foul play has grown a habit of the day. The theatre stalwarts who created a positive upsurge on the stage were forced to take on a more active role to fight some urgent social issues. It is interesting to recall that two of our ITI leaders, Syed Shamsul Huq and Aly Zaker came under serious wrath of the administration at a time when they actively participated in a 'people's court' that passed a verdict recommending punishment of some ruthless violators of human rights in 1971. These offenders were engaged in the killings of Bangladesh people and helped the Pakistani forces in their acts of repression on and rape of women. The mention of this incident simply indicates that how theatre activism in Bangladesh is connected with immediate social and political issues. Anyway, through some unfortunate political development, the society was forced to halt or move backward so far as the progressive endevours are concerned. But in spite of a short gap when theatre workers became watchful for a while, theatre again gained its lost strength. But probably as it happens with other artistic movement, we experienced a lean period, not exactly a stagnant one, but we had been struggling to progress in the qualitative area. A sense of light­heartedness temporarily submerged our theatrical activities. The strength of positive ridicule that one of our foremost groups, Nagorik Nattya Sampradaya succeeded in projecting on the stage with productions of Bertolt Brecht became a tool for some time to provide laughter to the audience and our theatre was stuffed with materials in between comedy and farce. Many groups were particularly interested in playing to the gallery. And sometimes that clicked. The result was an infection of the similar psychology into the schemes of others. But we went through some exceptional experience. The cult of tolerance and democratic practices came under strategic violation leading to an indulgence of a section people who preach and want to establish a society characterized by the conscripted divide of religious faiths, with patronage from some influential quarters of home (and probably from abroad too). Religious groups and institutions grew almost all over the country without any apparently particular reason. There was never a popular movement in favour of the acceptance of superiority of one particular institutional religion over others. But reality thwarted us. Some forcible changes could be detected in the social fabric of Bangladesh and liberal thinking was branded as something that is not acceptable as per the tenets of that particular religion. Growth of religious fundamentalism is a matter of increasing concern in Bangladesh. There exist some groups who believe in terrorism as a weapon to achieve their so-called religious ends and they directly and indirectly warn the cultural as well as theatre activists at regular intervals to 'moderate' themselves as per their prescription. Instances are there where shows had to be called off. But the reality of present-day Bangladesh would reveal that theatre workers and others involved in performing arts have not slowed down their activities in spite of the aggressive theocratic views purposefully spread all over the country by the twenty first century neo-fascist puritans. Rather our stage does intermittently deliver serious critiques of these ulterior moves by the people whose heads are filled by the dark thoughts of the Middle Ages, while in their hands they carry the most modern and scientific weapons for the annihilation of human bodies as well as their spirit. Violence of the militant fundamentalists recurs at irregular intervals yet Bangladesh theatre goes on unabated with all its vibrancy, diversity of aesthetical experiment and exploration of multiple themes. As I have noted earlier, I again want to insist that the section of 'thinking' theatre activists could not lay all their arms aside in such a precarious situation. They know and believe that they have a great treasury in the cultural roots. So the very first significant trend that we can identify in contemporary Bangladesh drama, when it had been slowly whirling in some kind of disarray, is a conscious look at the traditions of the past. With the change of approach in defining a theatrical action all over the world, particularly with the extensive and intensive choreographical compositions that skillfully attempt to work out a fusion of a lot dissimilar forms and gestures, our theatre workers started to undertake some equivalent exercises. In fact, some researchers and some groups did some extraordinary work in connecting the decaying present with the traditional past. Our folk traditional performances have abundant resources of theatre in terms of themes, music, dialogue, conflict, acting and even costume. But at the same time, both in theory and practice, our folk performances are characterized by serious social contents presented in an amazingly simple manner. Looking back into the cultural heritage that is largely enshrined in the forms still practiced in our countryside became a passion for many of our theatre workers. Selim Al Deen is a very renowned person in our dramatic literature. He has been always insistent to underline that Bengali theatre is much older than what the academics usually say. Frontline groups like Dhaka Theatre and Aronyak came up with productions that artistically integrate the forms, often said to be surviving in the peripheries, into metropolitan theatre. And this created an impact on the production of some other groups too. Such a journey to the roots was accelerated by the growing popularity of the theory of post-colonialism. In the rural areas of Bangladesh, the traditional narrative theatre still exists and the form is a very challenging one. Often there is only one actor performing the role of many or of two simultaneously that is so different from the conventional stage theatre. With minimum costume and limitation of space, a theatre is performed with songs, music, mimicry and at times with acrobatics. As a route to find out a difference that Bangladesh theatre urgently needed in the mid 80's, the inclusion or rehabilitation of folk tradition into the body of plays performed in the cities opened before us not only a very strong substitute, but also an opportunity to reach out to the areas of diversity which we virtually possess for generations. While in the past, the villagers' way of life and articulation was out into the play as something additional to create a variety in the storyline, and the contrast of the folk and the urban was sometimes identified as high and low, civilized and undercivilzed, in imitation of the colonial mindset, now the folk takes on the centre stage, almost disregarding any intervention made in theatre by the educated elites in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, that was not be, absolutely, since the metropolitan space has to be used and the director naturally wants to create some more effects with sound control and light design with the use of modern electronic gadgets. This marriage of the traditional and contemporary brings some real strength to our theatre. It is very heartening that the folk does not suffer from any kind of over employment, but the variety continues to come in from different regions, from the south, from the east. And this movement widens in its scope in various dimensions. So the movement finds its multiple routes. At one point, we all regretted about the scarcity of dramatic texts or scripts in vernacular (which is a reality even today) but probably today we do not regret the way we did in the past. Our young talents have come up to prepare scripts on the stories from the legends or on the life-styles of various communities living in different parts of the country. They initiated a kind of sociological search to study the lives of various communities, the fishermen, the boatmen, the village bard, the small religious cults. One great opportunity was opened in the process. The theatre workers found enough scope for experimentation. And what happened in the same process was something significant in the documentation of history. They could interpret history from, what can be called, the subaltern view. They could discover some old heroes of the community, forgotten or often ignored in the classical annals recorded out of the colonial mindest. In fact, in modern Bangladesh theatre, this is the most important trend. And here again, the theatre does not only initiate new thematic concerns in the narration of the play, (for the community/place/time/revolt/movement), but it also creates an environment in which not one or some play their roles, rather many are important and the presentation becomes increasingly a teamwork representing a group and community and often they work like the chorus in a multi-dimensional innocent looking intellectual space connecting the past with present, far with the near, traditional with the modern. This trend has encouraged our theatre workers to explore large areas. Plays have been produced on communities who live on fishing, cultivation, ferrying people on the rivers and so on. However, in particular, some communities who are more known as ethnic groups have entered our stage not just as distinct communities but as people on the margins. We can now see a growing interest, specially of the upcoming groups, to reflect the lives of the marginalized peoples. Plays have been produced on Chakma, Marma, Garo and Hajong ethnic groups. And in the process, it is not just the reflection of their lives rather some of the ancient myths of their lives have been integrated and reinterpreted in the plays. Moreover, the cultural tools that are so integral with their performing arts are used in the plays on the urban stage. So far the representation of their forms was limited to a kind tailored showcase required more to publicize the variety that Bangladesh possesses in order to fulfill the demands usually connected with the tourists. But in the recent times, these forms pronounce their claim to better treatment. It is interesting to note that one group, Mahakal has produced a play that focuses on the representation of a pitifully marginalized group, known as Hffras. These persons are genetically and sexually retarded, often looked down upon even by the very poor section of the people. Most of these plays are built on texts prepared by young people who usually devote a lot of time to action research. At the same time, another trend of the present-day Bangladesh theatre cannot be overlooked. While a lot of action on stage takes place with the people at the peripheries inside the country, we can also see that plays from Europe and America are being produced with a kind of seriousness that claims recognition. As many as four Arthur Miller plays have been produced. Two of them are being shown currently. A group from Chittagong, Tiryak has produced Sartre's No Exit. It is very interesting to note that we experienced an extra-ordinary production of Heiner Muller's The Mission. Translated by Saidus Saklaen, the play was produced by Centre for Asian Theatre. Kamaluddin Nilu directed the play which can be exemplified as the finest representation of post-modern Europe in our theatre. Nilu has shown his mastery in the direction of a Hernk Ibsen plays. Brand is his latest work. It was a great artistic adventure to produce this play in our present-day theatre. But it was a wonderful visual experience. A group in the southern part of Bangladesh, Shabdabali has produced a recreated version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, placed in the 'present' of our society. The Drama and Music Department of Dhaka University has produced a number of plays of overseas origin, in translation as well as in adapted and recreated versions. These are by Shakespeare, Chekov, Ibsen, Beckett, Pinter and others. The vibrancy of Bangladesh theatre can also be felt in its passionate re-search of some of the stories and legends from the epics. Even a play has been produced by a group that takes its theme from the Persion epic, Shahnama. Just at the moment (2005­06), we have four plays that connect the The Mahabharata. It is interesting to note that themes from this epic were used to create plays of social relevance in the near past by Shaoli Mitra, an great actress and director in Kolkata, India. However, we watched and enjoyed them but certainly were not influenced by those productions. We began a process all by ourselves. Theatre, one of the pioneering groups, produced Madhavi, directed by Ramendu Majumdar. What is very significant to discover in these productions is that the fragility of women's position has been underlined in most of them. The treatment of the myths from the epics, the inclusion of the folk traditions and the increasing interest in the marginalized people, all are actually bound to the centre of the intellectual framework of our theatre workers. And this is reflected not only in the selection of subject matter but also in the employment of techniques both in the plays that necessarily claim such a treatment and in the productions which otherwise have a metropolitan flavour. Another important thing comes out of ancient endevours. They remind us of the richness of our ancient culture. And this re-visioning is not limited to the areas of native country traditions; even on a casual scrutiny one can understand that an intellectual and cultural urge has been created among the theatre­workers not just to renew interest in anything remote from the present but it has persuaded them to re-read some of the older texts in order to reinterpret them and re-connect the contents in the contemporary context. However, this trend should not confused as a kind of nationalistic renascence against the recurring encroachment of western theatre traditions in our cultural milieu, which we had been sustaining for nearly three hundred years. Rather this should be explained as the artistic search of our theatre­ workers who certainly feel committed to the roots, but nevertheless are not conservative by any definition. They look for a variety on the stage with their conscious response to the present day social and cultural crisis. Theatre, till today, is understood by many of us as the vehicle to resist oppression, communalism, forces contrary to liberal ideas, social discrimination and injustice. So at the early period of Bangladesh theatre, we experienced a series of Brecht plays on our stage. However, a new generation of producers and directors found that the weaponry that they want to build up is not only to be reinforced from the resources from abroad; we have in our store of the past a wide range treasury of folk ideas and instances of performances with which we can consolidate our efforts for the same purpose. In the last two or three years, we have seen productions that quite specifically address the issues of the ethnic groups. Their peripheral existence in our society had been a reality, but in the recent times, disregard of their cultural heritage and threats to their community living have increased in a dangerous way. So theatre workers have come forward to highlight the issues of the religious minority and the small ethnic groups. And certainly, to fight this kind of aggressiveness, looking back into our old secular cultural heritage is a better and effective recourse. There it departs from the notions of nationalism that bind the intellectual exercises to a narrow circle. Apart from this search and theoretical-cum-practical settlement in our theatrical endeavours that reflect the energy that Bangladesh theatre possesses, there is a different logistic reality that has contributed to the spirited state or this art. We have suffered for long for the absence of good and decent theatre spaces. Earlier, we had two places with more limitations than conveniences. The city council built a hall supposed to be used by the theatre groups. It was born with a faulty structure. It remains simply abandoned now. At present, we have three places. That has lifted our spirit too. More groups can now be accommodated. Creating of more space for theatre will ultimately lead to create a harmony within our present-day society characterised by causalities and conflicts. Let's hope so. Hope is the immortal shelter for the theatre workers of Bangladesh, may be, all over the world. [This article was first published in the souvenir of the Theater festival and International Seminar organised by ITI Bangladesh Centre held at 21-28 February, 2006]