Trapped in a time warp

Classics are forever. But isn8217;t it high time Indian theatre broke free from the past and embraced new playwrights and fresh sensibilities? Not many in the thick of the drama scene seem to have the courage

It isn8217;t easy being a young Indian playwright these days. Mumbai-based Manav Kaul had to start a theatre troupe, Aranya, to stage his first play, while writer Ramu Ramanathan, also a Mumbaikar, finds himself directing almost 40 per cent of his self-scripted plays. 8220;There are few takers for new plays,8221; says the latter. Indeed, while budding prose writers and poets are riding an unprecedented boom in India, the lot of the upcoming dramatist has never been worse.

Ironically, as new playwrights struggle to find takers, the Capital8217;s theatre fraternity recently raised a toast to Vijay Tendulkar8217;s Ghasiram Kotwal, which was first staged in Delhi over three decades ago. Directors continue to bank on plays authored by the likes of Tendulkar, Manoj Mitra, Mohan Rakesh, Mahesh Elkunchwar, Satish Alekar, Badal Sircar and Girish Karnad for an obvious reason: they are tried-and-tested fare. As National School of Drama8217;s NSD Repertory director, Suresh Sharma, puts it, 8220;They are safe bets for directors8221;.

So, is there a paucity of quality playwrights among the current crop of Indian writers? 8220;It8217;s not that new plays are not being written. But even established directors do not want risk failure by staging the work of a new playwright. One flop can affect a director8217;s career graph drastically. So they prefer to do repeat productions of old plays. There is no inclination to go beyond established names,8221; adds Sharma.

Many directors feel that new plays are no patch on the celebrated classics in terms of depth and impact. The reluctance to back fresh writing talent, in turn, further hinders opportunities for new playwrights. Says playwright and director Chetan Dattar, whose translation, Ram Naam Satya Hai, was staged by the NSD repertory last year: 8220;Playwrights of yore had foresight. They wrote plays that are relevant to this day. These were well structured and had all the elements of good theatre8212;dance, music, props. Contemporary plays tend to be rather superficial. They are overly director-oriented to the exclusion to the other crucial creative inputs. Writers and designers have hardly any say.8221;

Today8217;s plays, says Sharma, are rather weak and flat and proffer little scope for characters to evolve and for scenes to develop. 8220;The plots are overloaded with situations to add variety and the result is that none of the themes is fully developed. That results in minimal audience involvement,8221; adds the NSD Repertory chief.

While some blame it on lack of innate creativity, others hold scarcity of resources responsible. Says 34-year-old playwright Asif Haider Ali Khan, who has penned successful scripts like Kafka Ek Adyay and Mast Kalandar: 8220;Finances are a big issue. It8217;s tough to get sponsors and the grants allocated by the government primarily support plays that throw light on run-of-the-mill social issues like dowry, illiteracy, etc. And there are hardly any scholarships. Even Sangeet Natak Academy ran a financial-support scheme for directors, but playwrights continue to be sidelined.8221;

According to playwright Ramanathan, who recently delivered a hit, Cotton 56, Polyester 84, the situation is particularly bad in the Hindi belt. 8220;Unlike in south India, Maharashtra and Bengal, in north India, theatre is not seen as a mainstream source of entertainment. People here do not patronise quality Hindi literature, and the result is an increasing dependence on adaptations and translations of old scripts.8221;

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Says Manav Kaul, whose second play Peele Scooter Wala Aadmi won the Mahindra Excellence Award for best script in 2006, 8220;There is intellectual bankruptcy all around. Our audience is ready for experimentation, but the themes have to be enticing enough to get people interested in freshly minted plays.8221;

Another problem area is the absence of formal training opportunities for aspiring playwrights. 8220;Forget private institutions, even the nodal body, NSD, offers specialisation only in acting and design. Writing is an absolutely ignored territory,8221; Kaul points out.

For Ramanathan, the time for half measures is long gone. 8220;We need to reinvent the entire grammar of our theatre, which continues to draw inspiration from archaic ideas and practices. Creativity cannot be inculcated but it can surely be polished to suit a specific genre or style. Everybody knows what is to be said, how you say it is absolutely critical,8221; he says.