In Good Jest

The stage is set for yet another tussle between a man and a woman,an accomplished male actor and an aspiring woman,who wants to play her part.

The stage is set for yet another tussle between a man and a woman,an accomplished male actor and an aspiring woman,who wants to play her part. And the male actor (playing a woman) must give up his place,when the woman steps on stage to stake her claim to the space and role thats been denied to her. The play Roop Aroop sees the popular performing tradition of nautanki as its backdrop and actors Happy Ranajit (who plays the woman) and Gauri Dewal explore some human dimensions of the phenomenon,taking the audience at the ongoing Theatre for Theatre Winter Festival through a journey thats multi-layered. Its a performance that won Ranajit the META Award in 2010. Displacement is always painful and the play looks at larger issues of gender,replacement,ego clash et al, shares Ranajit.

Till a few decades ago in India and in some parts even today,men adorn the female persona which is passed on from generation to generation. However,in the early 1930s,women too set foot on this stage with the first woman nautanki artiste,Gulab Bai,who changed the scene forever. Most of these women were from the Bedia community who were singers and dancers by caste and performed in festivals and occasions like weddings. The stage gave them dignity as performers and the tussle between the accomplished male actor and the aspiring woman was not an easy one and has many shades of a dilemma of existence,emotional crisis,male ego and the toughest,to let go, says Ranajit who found playing the role of a woman tough but the make-up helped him identify with the character better.

Directed by NSDs Tripurari Sharma,Roop Aroop as a play was devised by the actors. Its a 20-page script and an actors play with the performance style of nautanki,including the music and dance, explains Dewal.

The single most popular form of entertainment in the villages and smaller towns of northern India,nautanki vibrates with lively dancing,pulsating drum beats,and full-throated singing. There is intense melodic exchange between performers and comic relief in the form of individual songs and skits,dance,like other folk forms of theatre. The underlying principles of nautanki are also the same these are entertaining and message-oriented, points out Kamal Tewari,chairperson of the Chandigarh Sangeet Natak Akademi and a renowned theatre musician and actor. Depending on the theatre company or performing troupe,men continue to essay the roles of women. To keep alive oral traditions and folk forms like nautanki,Tewari agrees they have to be innovative. Precisely why an increasing number of theatre directors are merging folk forms like nautanki with contemporary forms of theatre and giving them a new lease of life, says Tewari,who organised a festival of theatre traditions last year,which saw some well-appreciated productions on nautanki,saang and khayal.

Using the elements of nautanki in his production,Sahiban,a Punjabi opera,theatre director Kewal Dhaliwal gave the classic love story of Mirza-Sahiban a new dimension. Interspersing songs,dances,live music,a chorus that repeats the dialogues of the actors,Amritsar-based Dhaliwal says it gave his actors a chance to explore new body movements,understand the subtle nuances of inter-weaving music and dialogues. I used two characters to bring in comic relief,as is done in traditional nautanki and feel that its the best way to preserve our folk forms and give our modern theatre an element of newness.

Randhir Kumar,who organizes a 20-day art festival in November in Bihar titled Majma with sections on theatre,street plays,films and workshops and seminars,agrees with that as well. Kumar,a 2008 pass-out of NSD,a theatre director and theatre production specialist has been extensively working on nautanki,using the form in his work,including an autobiographical production on Gulab Bai. Its a fascinating life,from the marginalised Bedia community of

Madhya Pradesh to the queen of nautanki. The glamour came from her and now nautanki has so many new faces. The effort is to keep intact the tradition,with innovations, says Kumar has also done a film for UNESCO on nautanki,the core idea being the need for its preservation.

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram