Right.
So remember how I said its a good idea to take a train to Ninasam because it gives you the overnight time to switch gears, cultures, and slowly go into a mode where you're ready to spend 25 days in a village, eating vegetarian food (differently cut squash mostly), and living at that general pace of life?
Well. For some reason I've decided that in order to go back to civilization and urbanity, the only way to do that is fast injection. Therefore, the 4 and a half hour drive to Mangalore airport (thank god it was in Gods own vehicular gift to India - the ambassador - which is basically two 3 seater sofa's on wheels with great suspension. I got to sleep or semi-sleep across the back one from 3.30 am till 8am. Now, I'm here at Mangalore airport, (first time out of heggodu in 3 weeks) with all sorts of cosmopolitain looking people, advertising hoardings, announcments, people, people, and more people (first time in three weeks). There's a machine here that wraps bags in plastic, in front of the row of cushioned chairs (first time in 3 weeks) and it seems like such an INSANELY profligate waste that I'm actually feeling offended by it, and look rather rudely at each person.
Its also the first time in three weeks that more than 3 people in the immediate vicinity speak english (But I want to speak my 5 words of Kannada!! WHY ARE YOU SPEAKING TO ME IN ENGLISH!!!!???!!!)
There's a shop in the airport selling books, there's a shop in the airport offerring me nice dress shirts to buy. What am I going to do with those? Oh, and row upon row upon row of soft drinks. Sprite, Coke, Red Bull (I know I've heard of these before).
Whats going to happen to me when I hit Bombay? I suppose this won't last too long. It better not, given that I've created a compay that insists that one can have an intense level of theatre practice INSPITE of being in bombay. A center of advanced stage capitalism running wild. (No, I'm not a commie - and any of you who decide to lable me lefty or whatever it is you did the last time I did one of these sojurns - you're not listening, and you're prejudging and this time I will smack you silly if you even try to put me in a conceptual box of ANY kind). But its interesting to see what people actually NEED to get by, or to get by and live enriching lives. Suddenly, everything that is being sold in this airport has an element that seems totally unneccesary and unproductive. Ah.. i'm not going to do this, everytime I do, I get told I'm ranting, and they all laugh and wait for me to reacclimatize to city life which is invariably - what happens. But I'd like to keep some of this perspective with me this time, and not loose it. I don't think I can preach it, but it'd be silly for all my friends to not try it out, at least once. (no, not direct a play in a village, but something similar.
I mean, the village of heggodu is one of the most cosmopolitain thinking villages I've ever seen, all because it has a theatre and cultural center that brings excellence - and sometimes not so much excellence - from all over the place. Where else do you see an amazing Japanese actress - highly trained in the suzuki method, come in, and enthrall an audience of kannada speaking arecanut farmers, with a play that was devised around a malayalam temple festival and the elephants that are involved?). What we really NEED rather than what we all are made to WANT.
On the way down here I kept dreaming of various changes I should think of making to the play, and one of the things that keeps hitting me, is this play - can never be done in English. Ever. Nothing of what it says would remain in that translation. I've been thinking of solutions to this, but so far none have come, and everyone that presents itself simply oversimplifies the issues in the play too much. Irony? A play about the hegemony of sanskrit, never being able to be done in the new sanskrit?
I think this play is going to be screaming new layers at me for a long while. So you can expect this blog to go on for a little while longer.
Will post pictures and video as soon as I can get back to better technology infrastructure in Bombay. (Yes, yes, I know. I know, but that doesn't vindicate you from thinking about what I've said.)
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Comedown.
Comedown.
Right. So now I'm still at Ninasam - attending a management workshop for the arts that Ninasam is hosting, They're looking at giving artists/arts organisations the concepts and vocabulary (all a bit vague to start out with, but i'm sure once its in thier subconciousness, helpful) to organize and manage themselves more effectively.
The night the play finished was great, I just went into relaxed jelly mode.
I attended day one of the workshop - switched gears, did it suprisingly seamlessly, and it helped me remember all the long term theatre to-do items I have on my list.Second day, I started feedback work with the students from 7am to 9am.
Then, went to attend the workshop. I just couldn't get into it. I found myself listless, un motivated. Went around the campus in the early afternoon and hunted down the students who i found out were doing nothing because of the workshop, and took a class with them. Still have to crack one or two more skulls before I leave here on Monday (Yes, monday people, I fly back to bombay).
But now, its midnight, and I have spent the whole evening absolutely exhausted. I can feel a comedown - like all the energy has been sapped from me.
I have some more feedback to give tomorrow. Have had many good discussions about the content of the play, and the way I've chosen to stage things, or the aspects of the story (and it turns out i've succeeded at planting the seed of an onion with many layers). But I have to now let it grow - so its going to gestate in my head for a while.
One of the things the play did, was to really prompt debate around the question of what would possess Gunadhaya to destroy his work. Many ideas have come up around that: the dichotomy of the court culture vs. the tribals in the forest, the culture of knowledge organisation and management that bhramins (I believe esp. bhramins from the south) practice, though in opposition to that, it has pointed out by the wonderful classical sanskrit and kannada trained Smartha (kota) Bhramin who gave the play its final dialogue - (remember I said it was being done fastidiously and with great deliberation?) that indeed, Vyasa, Kalidasa, Gunadhaya, none of these historical literary giants were bhramin. So for eg. if I were to use his Bhramin way of thinking, that the collecting of knowledge is the be all and end all, the very essence of his life, then it helps build a case for why he burns the stories at the end. But my version of the play also seeks to 'de-arayanize' (yes I know this term has inherent problems), the story as it is in the Katha Pitha, so having him be a bhramin goes against that. Since it is highly likely that he wasn't one.
Anyhow many thoughts, many exhaustions. So I sleep. Wake up at 7 on sunday morning to keep going with the students and their feedback.
Goodnight.
Right. So now I'm still at Ninasam - attending a management workshop for the arts that Ninasam is hosting, They're looking at giving artists/arts organisations the concepts and vocabulary (all a bit vague to start out with, but i'm sure once its in thier subconciousness, helpful) to organize and manage themselves more effectively.
The night the play finished was great, I just went into relaxed jelly mode.
I attended day one of the workshop - switched gears, did it suprisingly seamlessly, and it helped me remember all the long term theatre to-do items I have on my list.Second day, I started feedback work with the students from 7am to 9am.
Then, went to attend the workshop. I just couldn't get into it. I found myself listless, un motivated. Went around the campus in the early afternoon and hunted down the students who i found out were doing nothing because of the workshop, and took a class with them. Still have to crack one or two more skulls before I leave here on Monday (Yes, monday people, I fly back to bombay).
But now, its midnight, and I have spent the whole evening absolutely exhausted. I can feel a comedown - like all the energy has been sapped from me.
I have some more feedback to give tomorrow. Have had many good discussions about the content of the play, and the way I've chosen to stage things, or the aspects of the story (and it turns out i've succeeded at planting the seed of an onion with many layers). But I have to now let it grow - so its going to gestate in my head for a while.
One of the things the play did, was to really prompt debate around the question of what would possess Gunadhaya to destroy his work. Many ideas have come up around that: the dichotomy of the court culture vs. the tribals in the forest, the culture of knowledge organisation and management that bhramins (I believe esp. bhramins from the south) practice, though in opposition to that, it has pointed out by the wonderful classical sanskrit and kannada trained Smartha (kota) Bhramin who gave the play its final dialogue - (remember I said it was being done fastidiously and with great deliberation?) that indeed, Vyasa, Kalidasa, Gunadhaya, none of these historical literary giants were bhramin. So for eg. if I were to use his Bhramin way of thinking, that the collecting of knowledge is the be all and end all, the very essence of his life, then it helps build a case for why he burns the stories at the end. But my version of the play also seeks to 'de-arayanize' (yes I know this term has inherent problems), the story as it is in the Katha Pitha, so having him be a bhramin goes against that. Since it is highly likely that he wasn't one.
Anyhow many thoughts, many exhaustions. So I sleep. Wake up at 7 on sunday morning to keep going with the students and their feedback.
Goodnight.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Second Day. Better Play.
Second day. Better Play.
Well, turns out I had no reason to be terrified. What I did need to do, was learn one more simple thing. How to part ways with the cast as a director. (No, not some kind of "that was crap! I abdicate!").
They came back rested, and at 10 we started a class sitting outside under sunny skies, in the dappled shade of a few arecanut trees in front of the theatre, and we discussed a concept that I really wasn't sure I could explain to them. As in, its something you have to experience, not talk about.
It was that of energy. Keeping the energy on stage crackling, the tension between actors alive, there is always something, some kind of energy that exists between actors in a performance. (when its good, and they aren't just zombies giving thier lines on cue).
So after a rather long discourse on how to keep the energy up, how it changes hands, how the focus of energy shifts, how you can add energy, how you never take energy away, but just hold on to it, change its quality, and give it back into the scene (or your next entrance).
At exactly that point, everyone was focused on what I was saying, and suddenly, behind us, a crow sat on the insulation earthing point of an electricity crow, and the resulting blzzzttthhhttt sound (rubbish approximiation) and all of us, in one millisecond, turned to look. Some got up and ran to see because I think a child had seen it and screamed out in fright, so we thought the worst had happenned.
After realising it was fine, everyone came back with an its fine, no no , just all right, and sat down again.
I love how these moments just seem to happen at the right time - a lot of the time. It was a perfect example of what i was talking about. Thier energy was focused on me... and then it was focused on a single point outside, so strongly that some ran to give that moment attention, then they took that energy that had heightened, and each brought back a piece of it to the circle in a different form... no no, its ok, nothing happened, I didn't even see the crow, that gave me a fright, and they all settled in and discussed it with each other and then as I stood thier (waiting dictatorially) for them to return thier attention, they did.
So I basically explained that whole sequence of what happenned with that energy to them, and they so got it.
We reblocked the major group scene where Gunadhaya is foiled by Sarvavarman in the court, then ran it with them keeping an awareness of the energy, and how we were looking for an electricity between the two, that was added to, in different ways by the other charachters play around them. They saw it.
Then lunch, then return, and did a small exercise based on what Michael Chekov uses called Staccato Legato. I use it a a great all around skill reviewing exercise. It takes a series of 6 simple movements - of giving energy (in one sense) to the left, right, forward, backward, up and down. They have to do the movements repeatedly, in cycles of 2 slow, 2 fast, 1 slow, 1 fast, keeping a complete concentration on going from a zero state in the center each time, to 100 percent. The entire movement controlled. But all the energy channelized in on eof the six directions. Eventually after they got the movement, and the idea of total concentration in the movement, we did the cycles, and then the last one. which is one of each cycle but only inside thier bodies and heads. To just have a memory and a total impulse to move in each of the directions, inside them while standing still.
The afternoon session we fixed the ending to work smoother, I worked with Arun (our musician and percussionist) to provide a score that kept the energy up rather than slowed it down... yesterday that was a small part of the problem. Then I let them go.
They assembled at six. I ensured that thier principal was sitting in the auditorium somewhere 'corner of thier eye visible', and then put a bit of a fear into them.
"Today, is a test. Its the day you decide whether you are students at a theatre school, and want to remain that, or if you want to be a professional company of actors."
Was the basic upshot of the talk - I told them this was the last time I was talking to them as their teacher. I would maybe do a bit of touch up work with them and leave them alone. Arun would lead thier warm up and prayer, and I would be done in exactly 10 minutes. I ran the opening scene, touched it up and removed a few things that I thought slowed its tempo and took away from the establishment of the story, and then ran it, and let them go one or two individual notes to actors, that had to do with music cues, and then I was gone.
Last night - thier performances were nothing short of brilliant. Brilliant.
I was thrilled. I actually could sit back and WATCH the play. Enjoy it. Laugh, and be an audience member. And we recorded it! (though i looked a ta bit of the recording last night.. and I tell you... its just never the same... i have looked at any taping of a show of mine in the past. and now i know why.. the beauty lies in its ephemerality, that one performance.. done.. gone.. and to the next... )
But we sat down after the play.... Just so I could give them a shawl each - which I did, and thank them. But really they came in eyes bright from a really great performance, and a strong feeling of what it was like to really nail it.
You see what that felt like?
Was it not brilliant?
Now do you see the reward for all this work and pressure I've put you through?
THIS is what its like to do theatre.
THIS is why we work our butts off, for this moment, for THIS feeling. Is it not the sweetest thing you've ever felt?
Much approval.
And I? I ate, lay down in bed, and felt every milligram of tension of the last 3 weeks just dissipate from my body as I just turned into one relaxed puddle of happy jelly.
*ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...............................*
Well, turns out I had no reason to be terrified. What I did need to do, was learn one more simple thing. How to part ways with the cast as a director. (No, not some kind of "that was crap! I abdicate!").
They came back rested, and at 10 we started a class sitting outside under sunny skies, in the dappled shade of a few arecanut trees in front of the theatre, and we discussed a concept that I really wasn't sure I could explain to them. As in, its something you have to experience, not talk about.
It was that of energy. Keeping the energy on stage crackling, the tension between actors alive, there is always something, some kind of energy that exists between actors in a performance. (when its good, and they aren't just zombies giving thier lines on cue).
So after a rather long discourse on how to keep the energy up, how it changes hands, how the focus of energy shifts, how you can add energy, how you never take energy away, but just hold on to it, change its quality, and give it back into the scene (or your next entrance).
At exactly that point, everyone was focused on what I was saying, and suddenly, behind us, a crow sat on the insulation earthing point of an electricity crow, and the resulting blzzzttthhhttt sound (rubbish approximiation) and all of us, in one millisecond, turned to look. Some got up and ran to see because I think a child had seen it and screamed out in fright, so we thought the worst had happenned.
After realising it was fine, everyone came back with an its fine, no no , just all right, and sat down again.
I love how these moments just seem to happen at the right time - a lot of the time. It was a perfect example of what i was talking about. Thier energy was focused on me... and then it was focused on a single point outside, so strongly that some ran to give that moment attention, then they took that energy that had heightened, and each brought back a piece of it to the circle in a different form... no no, its ok, nothing happened, I didn't even see the crow, that gave me a fright, and they all settled in and discussed it with each other and then as I stood thier (waiting dictatorially) for them to return thier attention, they did.
So I basically explained that whole sequence of what happenned with that energy to them, and they so got it.
We reblocked the major group scene where Gunadhaya is foiled by Sarvavarman in the court, then ran it with them keeping an awareness of the energy, and how we were looking for an electricity between the two, that was added to, in different ways by the other charachters play around them. They saw it.
Then lunch, then return, and did a small exercise based on what Michael Chekov uses called Staccato Legato. I use it a a great all around skill reviewing exercise. It takes a series of 6 simple movements - of giving energy (in one sense) to the left, right, forward, backward, up and down. They have to do the movements repeatedly, in cycles of 2 slow, 2 fast, 1 slow, 1 fast, keeping a complete concentration on going from a zero state in the center each time, to 100 percent. The entire movement controlled. But all the energy channelized in on eof the six directions. Eventually after they got the movement, and the idea of total concentration in the movement, we did the cycles, and then the last one. which is one of each cycle but only inside thier bodies and heads. To just have a memory and a total impulse to move in each of the directions, inside them while standing still.
The afternoon session we fixed the ending to work smoother, I worked with Arun (our musician and percussionist) to provide a score that kept the energy up rather than slowed it down... yesterday that was a small part of the problem. Then I let them go.
They assembled at six. I ensured that thier principal was sitting in the auditorium somewhere 'corner of thier eye visible', and then put a bit of a fear into them.
"Today, is a test. Its the day you decide whether you are students at a theatre school, and want to remain that, or if you want to be a professional company of actors."
Was the basic upshot of the talk - I told them this was the last time I was talking to them as their teacher. I would maybe do a bit of touch up work with them and leave them alone. Arun would lead thier warm up and prayer, and I would be done in exactly 10 minutes. I ran the opening scene, touched it up and removed a few things that I thought slowed its tempo and took away from the establishment of the story, and then ran it, and let them go one or two individual notes to actors, that had to do with music cues, and then I was gone.
Last night - thier performances were nothing short of brilliant. Brilliant.
I was thrilled. I actually could sit back and WATCH the play. Enjoy it. Laugh, and be an audience member. And we recorded it! (though i looked a ta bit of the recording last night.. and I tell you... its just never the same... i have looked at any taping of a show of mine in the past. and now i know why.. the beauty lies in its ephemerality, that one performance.. done.. gone.. and to the next... )
But we sat down after the play.... Just so I could give them a shawl each - which I did, and thank them. But really they came in eyes bright from a really great performance, and a strong feeling of what it was like to really nail it.
You see what that felt like?
Was it not brilliant?
Now do you see the reward for all this work and pressure I've put you through?
THIS is what its like to do theatre.
THIS is why we work our butts off, for this moment, for THIS feeling. Is it not the sweetest thing you've ever felt?
Much approval.
And I? I ate, lay down in bed, and felt every milligram of tension of the last 3 weeks just dissipate from my body as I just turned into one relaxed puddle of happy jelly.
*ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...............................*
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
And the show goes on....
Well... that went well.
Its 11pm. I'm exhausted. Let me tell you why.
We had our technical dress run this morning - at 7am for the first act, and for the second act from 10 - 12.30. Then the students had to disband so that they could move out of thier rooms into a dormitory style accomodation in the school next door ( in order to make room for incoming Theatre people from across the country who are coming to Ninasam for a Theatre Management Conference this week)
Then they had lunch, and worked with me from 3 for about an hour. Then I thought I'd make things easy for them, and just let them sit and do a line run of the whole play. Which took them 2 hours (not good, I thought to myself - we're now at 5.30. They needed to have tea, come back, prepare for the play and do a warm up and hit the stage for a 7.15 performance.
The play - it went well. They pretty much did everything I had asked them to as a director, and in some cases more, and in general it was a strong set of performances with moments that dwindled in and out, but it lasted 2 hours! (Its supposed to be 2 acts of 40 minutes each - maximum). I was sitting in the back watching the audience (who were not responsive) thinking - oh boy.
Personally, I was at a loss. I couldn't figure out what it was that was wrong, why was everything dragging. The scenes were clear, the actions were clear, the actors gave themselves to it. They were doing everything right.
I was hit with a silent little terror because when I thought to myself, what do I to make this work better, to have the scenes run with a flow, a sense of strong forward motion, yet with time for the audience - there was no balance to be found.
(remember me worrying earlier about the play not taking a moment to breath earlier, and just rushing to the end. Well in this case, it was like watching a patient on a very slow life support respirator.)
I was stumped. I had no answer. What do I do as a director to get the flow right? To get the overall pacing right? The answer was not in the small details, it had to be an over all directors note, or an exercise we could go through - to make it work better. I had no answer!
Terror. Have I reached my limit? Is this where I fail? At the last step, they were the ones who were going to ask me 'what can we do better?' and I had no answer.
So after the run (which was beautiful, and told a story - though it was utterly slow) we sat down in our circle, and I asked them, what were your observations...
And the actor playing Sarvavarman, someone who does it well, and has really risen to the challenges I have given him - said... I couldn't find 10 minutes of continuous energy or concentration in me.
And I thought to myself - Jehan, you're really the stupidest idiot on the planet. It is 9.50pm. They've been at it for 14 hours straight. Of course they're going to give all they have, but I'd already taken it all away from them before the run.
So, giving them solace in the fact that they have come a long way since we began, and being very proud of them for the fact that at the end of 14 hours they were all still THERE, standing, (sittting actually) and alive.
I told them while it was my fault that they had run 14 hours straight. It was a good thing. Cause they're all stronger for it.
Still think I was a jackass. Tomorrow, we start at 10am. Its going to be a light day, full of interesting learing exercises, and plenty of time for them to rest before the show.
And it'll be a good show. I can feel it in my bones.
------
On another note, I just realised - today, that I've written my first play.
:-)
------
Its 11pm. I'm exhausted. Let me tell you why.
We had our technical dress run this morning - at 7am for the first act, and for the second act from 10 - 12.30. Then the students had to disband so that they could move out of thier rooms into a dormitory style accomodation in the school next door ( in order to make room for incoming Theatre people from across the country who are coming to Ninasam for a Theatre Management Conference this week)
Then they had lunch, and worked with me from 3 for about an hour. Then I thought I'd make things easy for them, and just let them sit and do a line run of the whole play. Which took them 2 hours (not good, I thought to myself - we're now at 5.30. They needed to have tea, come back, prepare for the play and do a warm up and hit the stage for a 7.15 performance.
The play - it went well. They pretty much did everything I had asked them to as a director, and in some cases more, and in general it was a strong set of performances with moments that dwindled in and out, but it lasted 2 hours! (Its supposed to be 2 acts of 40 minutes each - maximum). I was sitting in the back watching the audience (who were not responsive) thinking - oh boy.
Personally, I was at a loss. I couldn't figure out what it was that was wrong, why was everything dragging. The scenes were clear, the actions were clear, the actors gave themselves to it. They were doing everything right.
I was hit with a silent little terror because when I thought to myself, what do I to make this work better, to have the scenes run with a flow, a sense of strong forward motion, yet with time for the audience - there was no balance to be found.
(remember me worrying earlier about the play not taking a moment to breath earlier, and just rushing to the end. Well in this case, it was like watching a patient on a very slow life support respirator.)
I was stumped. I had no answer. What do I do as a director to get the flow right? To get the overall pacing right? The answer was not in the small details, it had to be an over all directors note, or an exercise we could go through - to make it work better. I had no answer!
Terror. Have I reached my limit? Is this where I fail? At the last step, they were the ones who were going to ask me 'what can we do better?' and I had no answer.
So after the run (which was beautiful, and told a story - though it was utterly slow) we sat down in our circle, and I asked them, what were your observations...
And the actor playing Sarvavarman, someone who does it well, and has really risen to the challenges I have given him - said... I couldn't find 10 minutes of continuous energy or concentration in me.
And I thought to myself - Jehan, you're really the stupidest idiot on the planet. It is 9.50pm. They've been at it for 14 hours straight. Of course they're going to give all they have, but I'd already taken it all away from them before the run.
So, giving them solace in the fact that they have come a long way since we began, and being very proud of them for the fact that at the end of 14 hours they were all still THERE, standing, (sittting actually) and alive.
I told them while it was my fault that they had run 14 hours straight. It was a good thing. Cause they're all stronger for it.
Still think I was a jackass. Tomorrow, we start at 10am. Its going to be a light day, full of interesting learing exercises, and plenty of time for them to rest before the show.
And it'll be a good show. I can feel it in my bones.
------
On another note, I just realised - today, that I've written my first play.
:-)
------
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Story of Gunadhaya Part 4.
Here you go, the fourth and final installment. With notes as to how we're treating it on stage.
Once again I reiterate - this story is an adaptation - based on the Katha Pitha Lamba in Somadeva's Katha Sarit Sagar - I use the english versions from C W Tawney's Ocean of Stories and Arshia Sattar's Kathasaritsagara. I was inspired to explore this story based on a humanistic (non-divine) retelling of the same by Mrinal Pande over coffee at the India International Center two years ago.
Looking like a tribal himself, with long matted locks, and an overgrown beard, Gunadhaya trudges back to the city of Pratishthana, the court of the great Satavahana. In this production, his hair just turns white... instantly... on stage as he runs his hands through his hair (with white paste in it) in a sort of exhaution yet satisfaction that the job has been done... after the writing of the stories.
He arrives, and after dealing with getting the guards to realise who he is, enters the court. The King welcomes him.
"Oh Gunadhaya, it is so good to see you."
Gunadhaya responds (in our play, he vows not to speak court languages for six years - not his entire life).
The kings sankrit is polished and fluent. Gunadhaya's is a bit rusty.
"And you as well Maharaja"
"Its been seven years... I suppose now that your vow of not speaking the court languages is over, you're happy to be back? We could use your wisdom amongst us here"
"Maharaja, where is the Queen?"
"She died 3 years ago."
Satavahana briefly thinks about the fact that she figured out that this was all a sham, and rarely if ever spoke to him again after Gunadhaya went into exile. Both for decieving her, and makign her loose a dear friend.
"Even though I learned Sanskrit, she just... stopped talking to me after a while. I never completely understood her. "
"But Gunadhaya, " he switches...
"Its truly good to see you. Its been a while since we've had pundits of yours and Sarvarman's calibre in our midsts."
Sarvavarman, of course, died happy and of old age, and the only pundits in the court, are his students, all of whom wield thier knowledge of sanskrit as a tool of superiority and power.
"Whats this you've brought with you. Asks Satavahana.
Pulled out of his distraught shock, of hearing about the Maharani's death. The inability to share with her these amazing stories, his work of the last seven years.. Gunadhaya answers almost mechanically...
"Oh, these, these are stories of your subjects from the hills and forests. I spent the last 7 years documenting them, and collecting them. They are said to be the stories of all these people, and of generations before them, all of whom have collected stories from across the known world. "
He has no use for them now...
"If you would like to take them and share them with the world, please do so."
"Thats impressive!" he indicates to one of his Bhramin pundits to take the seven bundles, each containing a lakh of shlokas in them. The pundit, reluctantly accepts this bundle of smelly blood soaked skin, with strange broad strokes on them...
He enquires with his colleague..
"The script seems somewhat familiar.."
"But the language....?"
Satavahana looks over thier shoulder.
"Paisachi!!"
"Sir? You know this language?!?"
"What? Huh? No. No. " And indicates to have it handed back to Gunadhaya.
Gunadhya, not surprised at the Raja's little revalation, looks at him enquiringly,
"Raja, I know you know the language... I have just spent the past seven years amongst the same tribes you grew up in. These are thier stories."
The Bhramins intercede. "Raja! The court awaits you. The pundits from the neighbouring kingdom have gathered to do discourse In Sanskrit (they emphasise to Gunadhaya) with you. We must not keep visiting dignitaries waiting. "
The Raja hesitates.
"Raja". Presses the Bhramin.
"Gunadhaya, this seems very laudible work, but we only speak Sanskrit in this court, even the other court langugages that were in use during your time are frowned upon. There's no place for something like this in our world. "
Gunadhaya takes the bundles and starts to prepare to leave. While being looked upon with utter malice and spite by the two Bhramins (who by the way were Sarvavarman's consipirators in the plan to oust Gunadhaya in this play).
"Gunadhaya" says the Raja, "Stay, we can have long conversations together, my sanskrit is very good now, you and I can debate in Sanskrit! "
The only person Gunadhaya ever enjoyed debating with in Sanskrit... is dead.
"Raja, there is no place for something like this (pointing at himself) in your world."
They part ways ... though not for the last time.
Gunadhaya returns to the forest. Realising the foolishness of his early years, and the stupid pride he had in court as a Bhramin pundit who only respected sanskrit, distraught about the fact that the person he wanted to share the stories with his long dead, and the only other person who could have read them, so easily chooses to reject such a collossal heritage. (*)
He sees the inevitability of change, and his mind, the fact that it is futile to try to share the stories of kanabhuti's people with a world that woudl not have them.
He sits at a clearing in the middle of the forest, and begins to make a fire.
Kanabhuti seeing his unhappiness... enquires...
"What happenned? how did you end up coming back so soon?"
no reply. as he silently gathers the shlokas near the fire.
"Did you get to share these stories with your friend?"
"She's not here any more."
"Oh.."
"But what are you doing?"
"I'm burning these."
"Why? This is all your work. All the stories that you said you wanted to collect. Why would you burn them?"
"Apart from me, there's no one on this planet who is able or willing to read them. None of your people can read, the concept of reading is alien to them. These shloks I have written have no place in this world."
Kanabhuti's old belief in the power of stories is reaffirmed (*)
"But you can teach my people Paisachi!"
"I am too old now... I don't think I am going to live for much longer. "
Kanabhuti concurrs...
"Stories are best told to each other, not read from a book."
"Gunadhaya! Before you burn them, at least, read them out loud to me one last time."
Gunadhaya thinks...
Then he starts to read...
As he reads each page to Kanabhuti, he then consigns it to the flames...
Slowly, as he continues to do this, story by story, the actors playing tribals (all 16 of them) who have gathered in a Kollatta dance in a circle around him, only humming the tunes of the stories... , start to dissapear in the smoke of his fire, pair by pair. Until it is only him, and Kanabhuti left... and the flames, and the smoke, and an empty stage...
(*) Both of them. This is the central reason for Gunadhaya burning the stories. Its still... - not brilliant, in my mind. He's ot a likeable protagonist given that he ended up bieng so
-------------
"What?? Cries the queen! SOMDEVA, tell me he burt all the stories!"
"Wait my Queen, I haven't finished."
-------------------
Somdeva continues to read..
(He reads the following passage from From Tawney's translation... with the bit about Shiva and Ganas as its his story to tell now...)
And while he was reading out and
burning that heavenly tale, all the deer, boars, buffaloes
and other wild animals came there, leaving their pasturage,
and formed a circle round him, listening with tears in their
eyes, unable to quit the spot.
In the meanwhile King Satavahana fell sick. And the
physicians said that his illness was due to eating meat wanting
in nutritive qualities. And when the cooks were scolded
for it they said :
" The hunters bring in to us flesh of this
kind." And when the hunters were taken to task they said :
"Ona hill not very far from here there is a Brahman reading,
who throws into a fire every leaf as soon as he has read it ; so
all the animals go there and listen, without ever grazing ; they
never wander anywhere else ; consequently this flesh of theirs
is wanting in nutritive properties on account of their going
without food." When he heard this speech of the hunters
he made them show him the way, and out of curiosity went
in person to see Gunadhya, and he beheld him, owing to his
forest life, overspread with matted locks that looked like the
smoke of the fire of his curse, that was almost extinguished
Then the king recognised him as he stood in the midst
of the weeping animals, and after he had respectfully saluted
him, he asked him for an explanation of all the circumstances.
That wise Brahman then related to the king in the
language of the demons his own history as Pushpadanta,
giving an account of the curse and all the circumstances
which originated the descent of the tale to earth. Then the
king, discovering that he was an incarnation of a Gana,
bowed at his feet, and asked him for that celestial tale that
had issued from the mouth of Siva. Then Gunadhya said
to that King Satavahana :
tc O king ! I have burnt six tales
containing six hundred thousand couplets ; but there is one
tale consisting of a hundred thousand couplets, take that,1
and these two pupils of mine shall explain it to you." So
spake Gunadhya and took leave of the king, and then by
strength of devotion laid aside his earthly body and, released
from the curse, ascended to his own heavenly home. Then the
king took that tale which Gunadhya had given, called Brihat
Kathd, containing the adventures of Naravahanadatta, and
went to his own city. And there he bestowed on Gunadeva
and Nandideva, the pupils of the poet who composed that tale,
lands, gold, garments, beasts of burden, palaces and treasures.
And having recovered the sense of that tale with their help,
Satavahana composed the book named Kathapitha, in order
to show how the tale came to be first made known in the
Paisacha language. Now that tale was so full of various
interest that men were so taken with it as to forget the tales
of the gods, and after producing that effect in the city it
attained uninterrupted renown in the three worlds."
Somdeva continues...
"Queen, (I think her name was Suryamati- no time to go back and check now.. ) I have found these documents from the court of Satavahana, from over 200 years ago, and have adapted and compiled them for your entertainment - in Sanskrit. I call this, the Kathasaritsagar"
Once again I reiterate - this story is an adaptation - based on the Katha Pitha Lamba in Somadeva's Katha Sarit Sagar - I use the english versions from C W Tawney's Ocean of Stories and Arshia Sattar's Kathasaritsagara. I was inspired to explore this story based on a humanistic (non-divine) retelling of the same by Mrinal Pande over coffee at the India International Center two years ago.
Looking like a tribal himself, with long matted locks, and an overgrown beard, Gunadhaya trudges back to the city of Pratishthana, the court of the great Satavahana. In this production, his hair just turns white... instantly... on stage as he runs his hands through his hair (with white paste in it) in a sort of exhaution yet satisfaction that the job has been done... after the writing of the stories.
He arrives, and after dealing with getting the guards to realise who he is, enters the court. The King welcomes him.
"Oh Gunadhaya, it is so good to see you."
Gunadhaya responds (in our play, he vows not to speak court languages for six years - not his entire life).
The kings sankrit is polished and fluent. Gunadhaya's is a bit rusty.
"And you as well Maharaja"
"Its been seven years... I suppose now that your vow of not speaking the court languages is over, you're happy to be back? We could use your wisdom amongst us here"
"Maharaja, where is the Queen?"
"She died 3 years ago."
Satavahana briefly thinks about the fact that she figured out that this was all a sham, and rarely if ever spoke to him again after Gunadhaya went into exile. Both for decieving her, and makign her loose a dear friend.
"Even though I learned Sanskrit, she just... stopped talking to me after a while. I never completely understood her. "
"But Gunadhaya, " he switches...
"Its truly good to see you. Its been a while since we've had pundits of yours and Sarvarman's calibre in our midsts."
Sarvavarman, of course, died happy and of old age, and the only pundits in the court, are his students, all of whom wield thier knowledge of sanskrit as a tool of superiority and power.
"Whats this you've brought with you. Asks Satavahana.
Pulled out of his distraught shock, of hearing about the Maharani's death. The inability to share with her these amazing stories, his work of the last seven years.. Gunadhaya answers almost mechanically...
"Oh, these, these are stories of your subjects from the hills and forests. I spent the last 7 years documenting them, and collecting them. They are said to be the stories of all these people, and of generations before them, all of whom have collected stories from across the known world. "
He has no use for them now...
"If you would like to take them and share them with the world, please do so."
"Thats impressive!" he indicates to one of his Bhramin pundits to take the seven bundles, each containing a lakh of shlokas in them. The pundit, reluctantly accepts this bundle of smelly blood soaked skin, with strange broad strokes on them...
He enquires with his colleague..
"The script seems somewhat familiar.."
"But the language....?"
Satavahana looks over thier shoulder.
"Paisachi!!"
"Sir? You know this language?!?"
"What? Huh? No. No. " And indicates to have it handed back to Gunadhaya.
Gunadhya, not surprised at the Raja's little revalation, looks at him enquiringly,
"Raja, I know you know the language... I have just spent the past seven years amongst the same tribes you grew up in. These are thier stories."
The Bhramins intercede. "Raja! The court awaits you. The pundits from the neighbouring kingdom have gathered to do discourse In Sanskrit (they emphasise to Gunadhaya) with you. We must not keep visiting dignitaries waiting. "
The Raja hesitates.
"Raja". Presses the Bhramin.
"Gunadhaya, this seems very laudible work, but we only speak Sanskrit in this court, even the other court langugages that were in use during your time are frowned upon. There's no place for something like this in our world. "
Gunadhaya takes the bundles and starts to prepare to leave. While being looked upon with utter malice and spite by the two Bhramins (who by the way were Sarvavarman's consipirators in the plan to oust Gunadhaya in this play).
"Gunadhaya" says the Raja, "Stay, we can have long conversations together, my sanskrit is very good now, you and I can debate in Sanskrit! "
The only person Gunadhaya ever enjoyed debating with in Sanskrit... is dead.
"Raja, there is no place for something like this (pointing at himself) in your world."
They part ways ... though not for the last time.
Gunadhaya returns to the forest. Realising the foolishness of his early years, and the stupid pride he had in court as a Bhramin pundit who only respected sanskrit, distraught about the fact that the person he wanted to share the stories with his long dead, and the only other person who could have read them, so easily chooses to reject such a collossal heritage. (*)
He sees the inevitability of change, and his mind, the fact that it is futile to try to share the stories of kanabhuti's people with a world that woudl not have them.
He sits at a clearing in the middle of the forest, and begins to make a fire.
Kanabhuti seeing his unhappiness... enquires...
"What happenned? how did you end up coming back so soon?"
no reply. as he silently gathers the shlokas near the fire.
"Did you get to share these stories with your friend?"
"She's not here any more."
"Oh.."
"But what are you doing?"
"I'm burning these."
"Why? This is all your work. All the stories that you said you wanted to collect. Why would you burn them?"
"Apart from me, there's no one on this planet who is able or willing to read them. None of your people can read, the concept of reading is alien to them. These shloks I have written have no place in this world."
Kanabhuti's old belief in the power of stories is reaffirmed (*)
"But you can teach my people Paisachi!"
"I am too old now... I don't think I am going to live for much longer. "
Kanabhuti concurrs...
"Stories are best told to each other, not read from a book."
"Gunadhaya! Before you burn them, at least, read them out loud to me one last time."
Gunadhaya thinks...
Then he starts to read...
As he reads each page to Kanabhuti, he then consigns it to the flames...
Slowly, as he continues to do this, story by story, the actors playing tribals (all 16 of them) who have gathered in a Kollatta dance in a circle around him, only humming the tunes of the stories... , start to dissapear in the smoke of his fire, pair by pair. Until it is only him, and Kanabhuti left... and the flames, and the smoke, and an empty stage...
(*) Both of them. This is the central reason for Gunadhaya burning the stories. Its still... - not brilliant, in my mind. He's ot a likeable protagonist given that he ended up bieng so
-------------
"What?? Cries the queen! SOMDEVA, tell me he burt all the stories!"
"Wait my Queen, I haven't finished."
-------------------
Somdeva continues to read..
(He reads the following passage from From Tawney's translation... with the bit about Shiva and Ganas as its his story to tell now...)
And while he was reading out and
burning that heavenly tale, all the deer, boars, buffaloes
and other wild animals came there, leaving their pasturage,
and formed a circle round him, listening with tears in their
eyes, unable to quit the spot.
In the meanwhile King Satavahana fell sick. And the
physicians said that his illness was due to eating meat wanting
in nutritive qualities. And when the cooks were scolded
for it they said :
" The hunters bring in to us flesh of this
kind." And when the hunters were taken to task they said :
"Ona hill not very far from here there is a Brahman reading,
who throws into a fire every leaf as soon as he has read it ; so
all the animals go there and listen, without ever grazing ; they
never wander anywhere else ; consequently this flesh of theirs
is wanting in nutritive properties on account of their going
without food." When he heard this speech of the hunters
he made them show him the way, and out of curiosity went
in person to see Gunadhya, and he beheld him, owing to his
forest life, overspread with matted locks that looked like the
smoke of the fire of his curse, that was almost extinguished
Then the king recognised him as he stood in the midst
of the weeping animals, and after he had respectfully saluted
him, he asked him for an explanation of all the circumstances.
That wise Brahman then related to the king in the
language of the demons his own history as Pushpadanta,
giving an account of the curse and all the circumstances
which originated the descent of the tale to earth. Then the
king, discovering that he was an incarnation of a Gana,
bowed at his feet, and asked him for that celestial tale that
had issued from the mouth of Siva. Then Gunadhya said
to that King Satavahana :
tc O king ! I have burnt six tales
containing six hundred thousand couplets ; but there is one
tale consisting of a hundred thousand couplets, take that,1
and these two pupils of mine shall explain it to you." So
spake Gunadhya and took leave of the king, and then by
strength of devotion laid aside his earthly body and, released
from the curse, ascended to his own heavenly home. Then the
king took that tale which Gunadhya had given, called Brihat
Kathd, containing the adventures of Naravahanadatta, and
went to his own city. And there he bestowed on Gunadeva
and Nandideva, the pupils of the poet who composed that tale,
lands, gold, garments, beasts of burden, palaces and treasures.
And having recovered the sense of that tale with their help,
Satavahana composed the book named Kathapitha, in order
to show how the tale came to be first made known in the
Paisacha language. Now that tale was so full of various
interest that men were so taken with it as to forget the tales
of the gods, and after producing that effect in the city it
attained uninterrupted renown in the three worlds."
Somdeva continues...
"Queen, (I think her name was Suryamati- no time to go back and check now.. ) I have found these documents from the court of Satavahana, from over 200 years ago, and have adapted and compiled them for your entertainment - in Sanskrit. I call this, the Kathasaritsagar"
Monday, December 15, 2008
Scaring myself Silly.
What a fright!
You know that moment where you look down into a deep dark well, or a deep dark tunnel, and you can't see the end. You shout into it, expecting to hear your echo... but somewhere, there's always a little fear, that something apart from your own voice, will shout back.
I blog in the vast anonymity of the internet. Even with facebook pointers, and gtalk status messages pointing to it, I honestly hadn't really expected that anyone would bother to click. So when I put up my facebook status to say.
"Jehan is now thinking that blogging and directing together is very difficult."
I got a bit of a start when I -- got comments back to say keep blogging!
Its hard. Especially now when many things are coming together, and my focus is sucked into making the final production - which is actually a work in progress - given that this is a first draft of a story about Gunadhaya anyway.
Yes yes, you'll get part 4 when I get part 4. We're a few days from run, and i still haven't figured out the last two scenes because i need to go back over the whole play, the story, see how the ideas that have been built into the story coalesce and work the final moments of the play from there. Ultimately - as one of my great mentors would say - no matter what you present in the story, if you get the ending right... people will remember it.
So.. making sure that's right even though the first show is dayafter.
But its difficult.
In the meanwhile, the students have been made to go through a very long and tough exercise, especially since I have been very VERY particular about getting it right. They work through each scene, line by line, moment by moment, and they state what happenned that changes thier objective, state thier objective one small sentence, I do XXXXXXXX to that/him/her/myself and the XXXXXX has to be a playable action, a verb that they can DO on stage. Coming up for the word for "transative verb" in Kannadda was difficult. We settled on "Verb with Purpose" Karaya Kriya. But its innacurate.
However, having gone thourgh act 1 (took 2 days) and now act 2 - the results are strong. They still need to connect thier stated objective with what they do better, but that will come. On my part, it takes a GREAT DEAL OF PATIENCE. But it works. Oh, and them stating thier reasons for objective change, and then thier objective, OUT LOUD, in Kannadda? I'm very happy to say that I've begun to tell what the verbs in kannada sound like. Its interesting, I have to also catch everytime they say "I TELL so and so about such and such." Telling is not allowed, the entier play could be I tell so and so about such and such.
Anyhow, the pressure has been building on them by me. That coupled with a moment, where afteer a long day, I found myself trying to explain to the cast how one actress, with a small supporting part, has successfully articulated every single objective of hers and connected it to what she does on stage, and was encouraging the rest to use it as an example. It was an important point, I wanted the actors to step up to the challenge.
One of the actors, responded to her, "well done, well done" he was trying to crack a joke, and be a bit faecetious...
It was so out of place and out of order, and was symptomatic of an endemic problem i have with them in my rehearsals:
I try to direct them, as professionals.
Expect professional behaviour from them.
Run things with a please and a thank you and a light joke here and there.
I don't try to be thier schoolmaster
I don't try to enforce a regime in the rehearsal room.
The expectation is you are actors, working on a project, training in professionalism, you will do this yourselves.
(Ah - but jehan, they're TRAINING)
So they are students, and sometimes, one has to treat them as such.
- It was once said to me by people here early in the process, at one level, while they are adults, and work towards it, they can behave like children, its part of the indian condition where we're all brought up under dictatorial school masters and not expected to discipline ourselves, but be disciplined by a strong authority figure.
As much as I hope that we can transcend this conditioning of ours from our school days, I have to say. At this point, I very much embraced that philosophy.
.... "I beg your pardon" (wait for translation)
"no nothing sir"
"why say that then? what is the point of it" (wait for translatoin)
"I was just being complimentary, she's like a sister to me I was encouraging her." (I wait for translation)
"Is that what you're here to do?" (Trans)
"No sir" suddenly realising i was serious.
"I'm trying to make a point here that all the actors need to get. I want them to take a moment for this to sink in, how is that going to happen, if they first have to absorb your wise ass moment?" (wil they translate wise ass? no, but I think the message gets across.)
"Sorry sir" muffleed silence, breaths, looks here and there...
Is about when I lost it.
And I mean, LOST IT.
I really went for them, in a way they haven't seen before, and I have rarely every been before. I was PISSED OFF and I RAGED AT THEM LOUD< SCREAMING< ONE POINT AFTER THE NEXT.
The best bit though, was that while I was RAGING at them, A bit of me was standing outside myself, and saying to myself, 'come on J, you've got more in you than that'
and the second, the millli second i thought that...
i found my lungs, voice and general size of tyrant increasing by a factor of ten. I WENT BALLISTIC!!!
Stunned, shocked silence, and not loosing a moment of that opportunity I sunk it every thought i had on what minimum standards was expected. They were listening to every screaming thought I had. Talk about getting through to people.
IN a rage I even explained why i was raging.
Made them all step back, take a moment to breath, told them to drop the emotions they were feeling with the raging, think about what it is they are here - on my stage - in my rehearsal, to learn and do. After 5 minutes, of them standing, silently with themselves, breathing, and haivng made personal decisions about how they were going to approach thigns. Rehearsal started.
I went back to directorial normal - silently exhausted inside.
I got the best 20 mintues of rehearsal i have had with them so far. Ideas flew thick and fast, creativity worked, peopel were trying to MAKE THE STORY WORK.
Then of course, something wasn't working out with one moment, and one of my actors, in an effort to get it right, and failing, lost it, and broke down.
"TEA BREAK PEOPLE LETS GO."
It took every iota of restraint in me to stop myself from going to her and making her feel better. My gut said. Not my place. She needs to sort this one out on her own.
After tea, i couldn't resist, i went to her to talk it through.
"Whats wrong"
"Nothing sir, I'll handle it."
"You ready to work?"
"YES sir."
I had an evening rehearsal which was nothing short of brilliant, and it was a group scene, the worst kind, and everyone was one huge web of performance energy.
Talk about scaring myself silly, I guess I'm the one who learned something new today.
You know that moment where you look down into a deep dark well, or a deep dark tunnel, and you can't see the end. You shout into it, expecting to hear your echo... but somewhere, there's always a little fear, that something apart from your own voice, will shout back.
I blog in the vast anonymity of the internet. Even with facebook pointers, and gtalk status messages pointing to it, I honestly hadn't really expected that anyone would bother to click. So when I put up my facebook status to say.
"Jehan is now thinking that blogging and directing together is very difficult."
I got a bit of a start when I -- got comments back to say keep blogging!
Its hard. Especially now when many things are coming together, and my focus is sucked into making the final production - which is actually a work in progress - given that this is a first draft of a story about Gunadhaya anyway.
Yes yes, you'll get part 4 when I get part 4. We're a few days from run, and i still haven't figured out the last two scenes because i need to go back over the whole play, the story, see how the ideas that have been built into the story coalesce and work the final moments of the play from there. Ultimately - as one of my great mentors would say - no matter what you present in the story, if you get the ending right... people will remember it.
So.. making sure that's right even though the first show is dayafter.
But its difficult.
In the meanwhile, the students have been made to go through a very long and tough exercise, especially since I have been very VERY particular about getting it right. They work through each scene, line by line, moment by moment, and they state what happenned that changes thier objective, state thier objective one small sentence, I do XXXXXXXX to that/him/her/myself and the XXXXXX has to be a playable action, a verb that they can DO on stage. Coming up for the word for "transative verb" in Kannadda was difficult. We settled on "Verb with Purpose" Karaya Kriya. But its innacurate.
However, having gone thourgh act 1 (took 2 days) and now act 2 - the results are strong. They still need to connect thier stated objective with what they do better, but that will come. On my part, it takes a GREAT DEAL OF PATIENCE. But it works. Oh, and them stating thier reasons for objective change, and then thier objective, OUT LOUD, in Kannadda? I'm very happy to say that I've begun to tell what the verbs in kannada sound like. Its interesting, I have to also catch everytime they say "I TELL so and so about such and such." Telling is not allowed, the entier play could be I tell so and so about such and such.
Anyhow, the pressure has been building on them by me. That coupled with a moment, where afteer a long day, I found myself trying to explain to the cast how one actress, with a small supporting part, has successfully articulated every single objective of hers and connected it to what she does on stage, and was encouraging the rest to use it as an example. It was an important point, I wanted the actors to step up to the challenge.
One of the actors, responded to her, "well done, well done" he was trying to crack a joke, and be a bit faecetious...
It was so out of place and out of order, and was symptomatic of an endemic problem i have with them in my rehearsals:
I try to direct them, as professionals.
Expect professional behaviour from them.
Run things with a please and a thank you and a light joke here and there.
I don't try to be thier schoolmaster
I don't try to enforce a regime in the rehearsal room.
The expectation is you are actors, working on a project, training in professionalism, you will do this yourselves.
(Ah - but jehan, they're TRAINING)
So they are students, and sometimes, one has to treat them as such.
- It was once said to me by people here early in the process, at one level, while they are adults, and work towards it, they can behave like children, its part of the indian condition where we're all brought up under dictatorial school masters and not expected to discipline ourselves, but be disciplined by a strong authority figure.
As much as I hope that we can transcend this conditioning of ours from our school days, I have to say. At this point, I very much embraced that philosophy.
.... "I beg your pardon" (wait for translation)
"no nothing sir"
"why say that then? what is the point of it" (wait for translatoin)
"I was just being complimentary, she's like a sister to me I was encouraging her." (I wait for translation)
"Is that what you're here to do?" (Trans)
"No sir" suddenly realising i was serious.
"I'm trying to make a point here that all the actors need to get. I want them to take a moment for this to sink in, how is that going to happen, if they first have to absorb your wise ass moment?" (wil they translate wise ass? no, but I think the message gets across.)
"Sorry sir" muffleed silence, breaths, looks here and there...
Is about when I lost it.
And I mean, LOST IT.
I really went for them, in a way they haven't seen before, and I have rarely every been before. I was PISSED OFF and I RAGED AT THEM LOUD< SCREAMING< ONE POINT AFTER THE NEXT.
The best bit though, was that while I was RAGING at them, A bit of me was standing outside myself, and saying to myself, 'come on J, you've got more in you than that'
and the second, the millli second i thought that...
i found my lungs, voice and general size of tyrant increasing by a factor of ten. I WENT BALLISTIC!!!
Stunned, shocked silence, and not loosing a moment of that opportunity I sunk it every thought i had on what minimum standards was expected. They were listening to every screaming thought I had. Talk about getting through to people.
IN a rage I even explained why i was raging.
Made them all step back, take a moment to breath, told them to drop the emotions they were feeling with the raging, think about what it is they are here - on my stage - in my rehearsal, to learn and do. After 5 minutes, of them standing, silently with themselves, breathing, and haivng made personal decisions about how they were going to approach thigns. Rehearsal started.
I went back to directorial normal - silently exhausted inside.
I got the best 20 mintues of rehearsal i have had with them so far. Ideas flew thick and fast, creativity worked, peopel were trying to MAKE THE STORY WORK.
Then of course, something wasn't working out with one moment, and one of my actors, in an effort to get it right, and failing, lost it, and broke down.
"TEA BREAK PEOPLE LETS GO."
It took every iota of restraint in me to stop myself from going to her and making her feel better. My gut said. Not my place. She needs to sort this one out on her own.
After tea, i couldn't resist, i went to her to talk it through.
"Whats wrong"
"Nothing sir, I'll handle it."
"You ready to work?"
"YES sir."
I had an evening rehearsal which was nothing short of brilliant, and it was a group scene, the worst kind, and everyone was one huge web of performance energy.
Talk about scaring myself silly, I guess I'm the one who learned something new today.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Revalations...
What WAS that?
I think I was possessed for a bit today. On barely any sleep, and with this feeling of needing to get to the end of this play I forged ahead in the three sessions we had today and by halfway through the third session had reached - yes, you guessed it. The end of the play!
Exhausted, I told my cast (who had to come along for the mad whirlwind ride) that we were done, and could resume tomorrow.
"Lets RUN IT" said they.
Ok! Lets run it, I sat back, promised myself - and good boy that I was kept my promise - not to stop the run for any reason. IF they wanted to, they could, but I would sit back and watch it.
I first of all was entirely and utterly shocked that we managed to get to 'run' the second act today. I did not think it would happen any earlier that tomorrow afternoon.
So first I'm just shocked at me for managing in this fit of delirium, to pull this off.
But then, I sat back and watched.
Here's what struck me. In my effort to get to the end of the play - I feel like the second act seems to be infected with that directorial desire of mine. It runs to the end of the play. Three nice large musical numbers, one introducing the tribes, the second helping Gunadhaya learn their ways and language (which is ultimately what this play is about), and third, the writing of stories, all work. But ... there's no serious respite. I feel like the 7 years that I have just staged, goes by way too fast.
So now I guess I have to figure out where to put the brakes. Give the audience a moment to take it all in. I realise something about the way I direct. I like to give more than one piece of information at the same time, layer a scene so that 10 things are going on, and you have to stay alert to catch them. But If I can't take them all in while watching it as a director... how is my audience going to deal with this? Its like, I'm creating a play that is meant to be watched more than once. So I suppose breaking it up a bit is going to help, highlighting one significant moment to another, and stringing them out consecutively rather than simultaneously presenting them... OH The work!
I also think that given that we have written this as we go from scene to scene, keeping just a root structure in place and then devising accordingly, that there's been little room for character growth in some cases. Everyone of my actors know who thier charachter is, and has managed to create rather full stories for themselves that have helped them figure out thier journies through each scene (and helped me massively to actually write the play as we go along on our feet), but no space for how they react to the idea that the stories will be destroyed.
In part I think its probably that I haven't managed to significantly rationalize Gunadhaya's choice. Yet. Its interesting, the two actors playing Gunadhaya in the first and second act seem to have no agency, things are done to them, or they just respond to that which transpires around them. The actors playing them have been asked - for now - to just keep themselves, neutral, open to the events that happen to them. The character goes through the motions, the actors bear silent witness to see how they end up responding, what thier urges are. Going back to the source text for the adaptation, Tawney's Kathasaritsagar, I still can't find any significant drive in these charachters, which I suppose was the reason I wanted to explore it in the first place. What could posess a man to do what he did.
Partly because I don't know how to deal with this choice? Or could it be that there is nothing I can think of, nothign that strikes me - yet - from all the work we've created that could be the spark for a reason for him to commit what I constantly think of as a MAD MAD act.
Apart from his love for the queen. Which at one level, seems exactly the reason why he would destroy it, it makes sense. But its such an ... easy out from the problem.
I think its time for the final installment of Gunadhaya's story. As confounding as it feels to me right now, I like that suddenly I am wracked - in rehearsal - with the very issue that made me want to explore the play in the first place.
So things for me to think about in this structure.
1) Easing up the pace here and there and letting the play and audience breathe.
2) Working on why Gunadhaya would do what he did in search for further clarity.
3) I think developing the actors playing his charachter into thier full living breathing charachters to see what we discover from them now that we've put the other events in play.
-----------
On another note, had a very intense moment with a young actor who plays a key part in the second half of the play. He's a born performer and entertainer, and uses it all the time to do things. But it gets in the way of his acting. So today starting when he sat down at the same table for breakfast, I introduced him to the notion of dropping his performance mask and seeing what lies beneath it. I joked about it then, we're going to drop the characther that is Rahul (his name, changed) and see if we can find the actor lying beneath.
In my various dealings with the language, and working with circles of concentration, and the idea of existing in a nil/null space. I just said.. we're going to find the shunya actor. the Nil / null / zero actor in you today. I spent the whole day getting him to 'do nothing' just mechanically perform everything. Invest nothing in it, ESPECIALLY not his performer persona. I was pretty hard on forcing him to stay away from that.
after a while of me insisting and stopping rehearsals every few seconds to not let him revert to form.. he started to get it. I kept pushing, insisting. He started to find things, other responses that crept up on him now that he was just doing, and listening, and not investing or premeditating, or reverting back to his safe ground of 'entertaining' us. He got it, it worked, he started to be in the moment, the mechanics kept him on course, and in a place where he could just stay open to what other characthres were saying and doing, and i think that was a whole new sensation for him which he didn't know how to compute. I think it was a bit too much to take in. He kind of lost it on stage, and after some comforting by me, assuring him that a) he was getting it, and b) me asking him to put his performer persona on hold was not me 'not liking or hating him' etc. It was all better. I felt so bad for taking him to that point, but I really think its helped.
Guess I discovered tough love today.
Post the final part of Gunadhaya's story tomorrow.
I think I was possessed for a bit today. On barely any sleep, and with this feeling of needing to get to the end of this play I forged ahead in the three sessions we had today and by halfway through the third session had reached - yes, you guessed it. The end of the play!
Exhausted, I told my cast (who had to come along for the mad whirlwind ride) that we were done, and could resume tomorrow.
"Lets RUN IT" said they.
Ok! Lets run it, I sat back, promised myself - and good boy that I was kept my promise - not to stop the run for any reason. IF they wanted to, they could, but I would sit back and watch it.
I first of all was entirely and utterly shocked that we managed to get to 'run' the second act today. I did not think it would happen any earlier that tomorrow afternoon.
So first I'm just shocked at me for managing in this fit of delirium, to pull this off.
But then, I sat back and watched.
Here's what struck me. In my effort to get to the end of the play - I feel like the second act seems to be infected with that directorial desire of mine. It runs to the end of the play. Three nice large musical numbers, one introducing the tribes, the second helping Gunadhaya learn their ways and language (which is ultimately what this play is about), and third, the writing of stories, all work. But ... there's no serious respite. I feel like the 7 years that I have just staged, goes by way too fast.
So now I guess I have to figure out where to put the brakes. Give the audience a moment to take it all in. I realise something about the way I direct. I like to give more than one piece of information at the same time, layer a scene so that 10 things are going on, and you have to stay alert to catch them. But If I can't take them all in while watching it as a director... how is my audience going to deal with this? Its like, I'm creating a play that is meant to be watched more than once. So I suppose breaking it up a bit is going to help, highlighting one significant moment to another, and stringing them out consecutively rather than simultaneously presenting them... OH The work!
I also think that given that we have written this as we go from scene to scene, keeping just a root structure in place and then devising accordingly, that there's been little room for character growth in some cases. Everyone of my actors know who thier charachter is, and has managed to create rather full stories for themselves that have helped them figure out thier journies through each scene (and helped me massively to actually write the play as we go along on our feet), but no space for how they react to the idea that the stories will be destroyed.
In part I think its probably that I haven't managed to significantly rationalize Gunadhaya's choice. Yet. Its interesting, the two actors playing Gunadhaya in the first and second act seem to have no agency, things are done to them, or they just respond to that which transpires around them. The actors playing them have been asked - for now - to just keep themselves, neutral, open to the events that happen to them. The character goes through the motions, the actors bear silent witness to see how they end up responding, what thier urges are. Going back to the source text for the adaptation, Tawney's Kathasaritsagar, I still can't find any significant drive in these charachters, which I suppose was the reason I wanted to explore it in the first place. What could posess a man to do what he did.
Partly because I don't know how to deal with this choice? Or could it be that there is nothing I can think of, nothign that strikes me - yet - from all the work we've created that could be the spark for a reason for him to commit what I constantly think of as a MAD MAD act.
Apart from his love for the queen. Which at one level, seems exactly the reason why he would destroy it, it makes sense. But its such an ... easy out from the problem.
I think its time for the final installment of Gunadhaya's story. As confounding as it feels to me right now, I like that suddenly I am wracked - in rehearsal - with the very issue that made me want to explore the play in the first place.
So things for me to think about in this structure.
1) Easing up the pace here and there and letting the play and audience breathe.
2) Working on why Gunadhaya would do what he did in search for further clarity.
3) I think developing the actors playing his charachter into thier full living breathing charachters to see what we discover from them now that we've put the other events in play.
-----------
On another note, had a very intense moment with a young actor who plays a key part in the second half of the play. He's a born performer and entertainer, and uses it all the time to do things. But it gets in the way of his acting. So today starting when he sat down at the same table for breakfast, I introduced him to the notion of dropping his performance mask and seeing what lies beneath it. I joked about it then, we're going to drop the characther that is Rahul (his name, changed) and see if we can find the actor lying beneath.
In my various dealings with the language, and working with circles of concentration, and the idea of existing in a nil/null space. I just said.. we're going to find the shunya actor. the Nil / null / zero actor in you today. I spent the whole day getting him to 'do nothing' just mechanically perform everything. Invest nothing in it, ESPECIALLY not his performer persona. I was pretty hard on forcing him to stay away from that.
after a while of me insisting and stopping rehearsals every few seconds to not let him revert to form.. he started to get it. I kept pushing, insisting. He started to find things, other responses that crept up on him now that he was just doing, and listening, and not investing or premeditating, or reverting back to his safe ground of 'entertaining' us. He got it, it worked, he started to be in the moment, the mechanics kept him on course, and in a place where he could just stay open to what other characthres were saying and doing, and i think that was a whole new sensation for him which he didn't know how to compute. I think it was a bit too much to take in. He kind of lost it on stage, and after some comforting by me, assuring him that a) he was getting it, and b) me asking him to put his performer persona on hold was not me 'not liking or hating him' etc. It was all better. I felt so bad for taking him to that point, but I really think its helped.
Guess I discovered tough love today.
Post the final part of Gunadhaya's story tomorrow.
Directorial Insomnia
The intensity of rehearsals and the sustained active on my feet thinking time is so strong, that I can't seem to sleep. My mind keeps getting punctuated by thoughts about the play etc. I have tried to unwind by getting on line and reading news stories and other websites as they lagubriously make thier way on to my browser over this very slow connection.
I;ve played hearts. Minesweeper. Can't read, cause thiers no electricity after midnight. Drank water, gone to the loo, walked on the verandah, looked at the deep dark woods on the otherside of the road and wondered what that sudden crack sound was. The road itself is lit in a pale gibbous moon light.
I've tossed, turned, adjusted pillow, etc etc.
NO sleep.
Shall try again now as I feel a bit of a sleepy bug coming on now. BUt its 2.43 and I've never stayed up this late here.
11pm Max.
Even without thinking about the play I just feel like I need to be awake.
Just wired i suppose.
I;ve played hearts. Minesweeper. Can't read, cause thiers no electricity after midnight. Drank water, gone to the loo, walked on the verandah, looked at the deep dark woods on the otherside of the road and wondered what that sudden crack sound was. The road itself is lit in a pale gibbous moon light.
I've tossed, turned, adjusted pillow, etc etc.
NO sleep.
Shall try again now as I feel a bit of a sleepy bug coming on now. BUt its 2.43 and I've never stayed up this late here.
11pm Max.
Even without thinking about the play I just feel like I need to be awake.
Just wired i suppose.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Directing Musicals.
First thought on this subject?
AUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
After I have taken a breath, and then got on with the buissiness of it, it gets a bit more interesting. Firstly, I need to take a moment to apologise to one of my Mentors, Pete Rowe, who - amongst other things - also directed musicals. I assisted him on Sondhiem's "Company" and my dis-interest in the medium was as clear as day. The idea of using song to express emotion, tell a story, move the audience along from one world to another. Not things I was very open to.
"Jackass", I say to myself as I type this.
The second half of my play is a Sangeet Natak. For lack of any better translation, and actually I should just admit it, it translates best, to Musical. Pete, if you're reading this, feel free to chuckle at my expense.
Now, I didn't plan this. It happenned. Just, naturally, and my gut said, it was the right way to go. My wonderful musical director, Arun, has a way of delivering exactly what the play needs musically in the way of underlying score, and seems to be doing just that with the singing section.
So we have - opening scene of second act. From Forest to Tribal Song via Kollatta, a stick dance done in a circular form with everyone hitting each others sticks in rhythm and moving in step. The circular patterns vary, single circle, alternate people moving left alternate people moving right, circle within the circle, inner circle clockwise, outer circle counter clockwise, and so on and so forth. Great way of introducing the tribe.
We then have a bit of dialogue and move into the - you need to learn our language song.
Needed, and it works.
We then have some more dialogue
And then the song - the title song of the play - did i forget to tell you? Our Play now has a name! Kathe Kathe Karana.
I wrote down a bunch of ideas I needed to write in terms of what was important in the song. Akshara penned the lyrics - they're beautiful, and the title emerged from within it.
But my GOD. STAGING THEM!!!! Thank God for sitting in on some of Pete's rehearsals. The only way to do it, is with GREAT patience. WITH GREAT GREAT GREAT patience. Listen to the song at the begginninng. Pick out a roadmap of what you want to show on stage, in order of importance, and if the words ( in Kannadda, a language I do NOT know) match with the action, BONUS! Ok, not true, I know exactly when I need to do what in this song.
But listen first, to the whole song, know it well, and then go about the buissiness of trying to figure out how to move from one ' postcard moment ' (thank you Bill) to the next, in the time that it takes to go from one chorus to the next.
Did I mention the amount of patience it needs, the absolute need to let go of any kind of stage logic I have going on in my head, and stop it from dictating things to me about how things have to be. Real time, stage time, real space, stage space, all get conflated into one bunch of fragments which - once I allow for - really help the song and story along.
Did I mention the amount of patience it needs? Patience? Patience? Patience. Staging, blocking and all of that happens line by line, Bar by bar. I spent the whole second and third section today on Kathe Kathe Karana, and have only got as far as the first section. There are two more sections to go. EEESH.
I have vowed to myself to be done with the whole play, both acts, by day after tomorrow morning. Thats four rehearsal sessions away. But I'm terrified at the amount of time required to nail each thing.
Left -
2 Sections of Kathe Kathe Karana
1 Scene with the King - Dialogue THANKFULLy
1 Burning Scene - still haven't told you that part of the story have I?
1 Denumont (spelling?)
5 in four sessions? Oh woe is me.
AUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
After I have taken a breath, and then got on with the buissiness of it, it gets a bit more interesting. Firstly, I need to take a moment to apologise to one of my Mentors, Pete Rowe, who - amongst other things - also directed musicals. I assisted him on Sondhiem's "Company" and my dis-interest in the medium was as clear as day. The idea of using song to express emotion, tell a story, move the audience along from one world to another. Not things I was very open to.
"Jackass", I say to myself as I type this.
The second half of my play is a Sangeet Natak. For lack of any better translation, and actually I should just admit it, it translates best, to Musical. Pete, if you're reading this, feel free to chuckle at my expense.
Now, I didn't plan this. It happenned. Just, naturally, and my gut said, it was the right way to go. My wonderful musical director, Arun, has a way of delivering exactly what the play needs musically in the way of underlying score, and seems to be doing just that with the singing section.
So we have - opening scene of second act. From Forest to Tribal Song via Kollatta, a stick dance done in a circular form with everyone hitting each others sticks in rhythm and moving in step. The circular patterns vary, single circle, alternate people moving left alternate people moving right, circle within the circle, inner circle clockwise, outer circle counter clockwise, and so on and so forth. Great way of introducing the tribe.
We then have a bit of dialogue and move into the - you need to learn our language song.
Needed, and it works.
We then have some more dialogue
And then the song - the title song of the play - did i forget to tell you? Our Play now has a name! Kathe Kathe Karana.
I wrote down a bunch of ideas I needed to write in terms of what was important in the song. Akshara penned the lyrics - they're beautiful, and the title emerged from within it.
But my GOD. STAGING THEM!!!! Thank God for sitting in on some of Pete's rehearsals. The only way to do it, is with GREAT patience. WITH GREAT GREAT GREAT patience. Listen to the song at the begginninng. Pick out a roadmap of what you want to show on stage, in order of importance, and if the words ( in Kannadda, a language I do NOT know) match with the action, BONUS! Ok, not true, I know exactly when I need to do what in this song.
But listen first, to the whole song, know it well, and then go about the buissiness of trying to figure out how to move from one ' postcard moment ' (thank you Bill) to the next, in the time that it takes to go from one chorus to the next.
Did I mention the amount of patience it needs, the absolute need to let go of any kind of stage logic I have going on in my head, and stop it from dictating things to me about how things have to be. Real time, stage time, real space, stage space, all get conflated into one bunch of fragments which - once I allow for - really help the song and story along.
Did I mention the amount of patience it needs? Patience? Patience? Patience. Staging, blocking and all of that happens line by line, Bar by bar. I spent the whole second and third section today on Kathe Kathe Karana, and have only got as far as the first section. There are two more sections to go. EEESH.
I have vowed to myself to be done with the whole play, both acts, by day after tomorrow morning. Thats four rehearsal sessions away. But I'm terrified at the amount of time required to nail each thing.
Left -
2 Sections of Kathe Kathe Karana
1 Scene with the King - Dialogue THANKFULLy
1 Burning Scene - still haven't told you that part of the story have I?
1 Denumont (spelling?)
5 in four sessions? Oh woe is me.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
The Story of Gunadhaya Part 3
The Story of Gunadhaya Part 3.
Gunadhaya, in a strong and sustained state of shock at the injustice that transpired, trudges through the country side of pratishtana. After staying a few weeks in the palace he realised that not being able to speak any of the three court languages made him persona non-grata. The masses can be so fickle. From most loved 'janakpriya Gunadhaya' he went to 'whose that guy sulking in the corner.
Its not as if he had a choice. Even if he chose to not honor the terms of the bet, given that such an injustice was perpetrated. If he spoke, what would he say? That the King was part of a conspiracy to make him lose? That the King had been dishonest? Could he even say this to Vaishnavi, 'that you were also made complicit in the conspiracy.' Vaishnavi, who thought she had interceded in the court proceedings in the names of fairness to protect her favourite and most trusted pundit. Only to ask a question that was already known by Devaki?
Sadness knows know bounds, and Gunadhaya's feet carried his sadness into the deep dark jungles on the border of Pratishtana. At some point, Gunadhaya stops, and looks around, only to find himself lost in the middle of a forest. Suddenly he hears some music in the distance, and slowly follows the sound to find a group of tribals celebrating - something - in song and dance.
He watches from the side, trying to stay discreet. But he's not exactly in camoflage fatigues now is he? And to an eye familiar with a forest, he probably stood out like a neon sign. Kanabhuti, a tribal elder, brings him in, noticing that he is troubled deep within, and amidst much curiosity and fun, determines that Gunadhaya should be allowed to stay here until he sorts himself out. The tribals of course can't decide if he's a mute, or if he's just shy. Gunadhaya of course, says nothing. He doesn't understand this very fast, sing song, language that the tribals are communicating in (we're using an unnamed dialect from the kannada-andhra border, tullu, and konkani here).
After much argument, and about 10 minutes of other languages on stage... Kanabhuti declaims (on-stage in perfect kannada).
"No its not that he's dumb. He's not talking because he can't speak our Paisachi language!"
Replies come in thick and fast...
"Oh he can't speak our paisachi"
"I still think he's dumb"
"shut up what do you know"
"How do we communciate with him?" come the replys from the tribals (once again, in perfect kannada on stage).
"Tell you what, I'll teach him" determines kanabhuti.
And then proceeds to start to teach a willing Gunadhaya Paisachi (kannada), a whole new language in which he can communicate.
Much to the awe and amazement of the tribe. Gunadhaya picks up the language rapidly (about 3 minutes of stage time - in a song that starts with naming the various parts of ones face, and develops into full structured sentences with an ultimate declamation - I can speak Paisachi).
Gunadhaya settles into life, there. Watching as members of other tribes come in and out, meeting Kanubhuti, sharing stories, (Kanabhuti turns out to be an accomplished Griot), telling them of thier problems.
One tribal elder comes to tell Kanubhuti of the impending distruction of his tribe and thier way of life - given the constant encroachment on thier land by plains dwellers. Times are bad for them. Kanubhuti worries about thier stories.
One day Gunadhaya sees a kid riding his uncle who is pretending to be a lion. His memories go back to Satavahana, the oath, his life in the court - all of which he doesn't mind leaving - but Vaishnavi - his close friend - he misses very much.
Kanabhuti asks him where his thoughts are.
"Oh from my past life before I came here."
"You must miss it"
"No, not really - I realise now it wasn't that important."
"Then why the sadness?"
"I miss one person from it."
"Ah"
"Kanabhuti, you seem to be a much loved leader of your people".
"Leader!! HA HA HA HA HA - I can't even get Kaalava to listen to me, you think I could be a leader?"
"Then why to people always come to you and talk to you?"
"We share stories. I collect them." -He says proudly."
"They're a collection of all of our wisdom, and knowledge, they are who we are. Sometimes I think we were only made so that we could tell stories to each other, so that the stories could live through our telling them."
Kanubhuti sees the tribal elder from the other village.
"But I worry. Our tribes are diminishing. After us, who will keep these stories alive?"
"Kanubhuti! I could easily devise a script and write these stories down."
"Write?"
"Yes Write, put them down in symbols on paper, that anyone can read. I would love to write all the stories of your people, and preserve them. I keep thinking when I hear them, that they woudl be enjoyed so much by my friend.. if I were to ever meet her again."
Kanubhuti is skeptical. Read a story? Off a page? Where is the life in that? How can a page give expression? How can a page tell the story with life, like a Griot can?
"Well, if you feel this is what you want to do, then you must do it. Thats how all of us operate here. What can we do to help."
After a brief discussion with the hunters, and leather makers, a plan is hatched to create pages from leather and bark and leaves, and after trying a few opitons, Gunadhaya settles on using his own blood as ink.
The story writing starts, the tribe being demolished is particularly interested in having thier stories preserved.
Pages are made, the stories, keep coming, gunadhaya grows week from the amount of blood he uses, and the tribals start to pitch in. Giving thier blood into these stories, as he sits thier dilligently and writes them.
Seven years pass.
Gunadhaya has now written 7,00,000 verses. Of all the stories of all the tribes in the region. Its quite an achievement. He determines that it is now time to take these stories out into the world, to share them, first with Vaishnavi, and then with the world.
He heads back to the court of Satavahana.
Gunadhaya, in a strong and sustained state of shock at the injustice that transpired, trudges through the country side of pratishtana. After staying a few weeks in the palace he realised that not being able to speak any of the three court languages made him persona non-grata. The masses can be so fickle. From most loved 'janakpriya Gunadhaya' he went to 'whose that guy sulking in the corner.
Its not as if he had a choice. Even if he chose to not honor the terms of the bet, given that such an injustice was perpetrated. If he spoke, what would he say? That the King was part of a conspiracy to make him lose? That the King had been dishonest? Could he even say this to Vaishnavi, 'that you were also made complicit in the conspiracy.' Vaishnavi, who thought she had interceded in the court proceedings in the names of fairness to protect her favourite and most trusted pundit. Only to ask a question that was already known by Devaki?
Sadness knows know bounds, and Gunadhaya's feet carried his sadness into the deep dark jungles on the border of Pratishtana. At some point, Gunadhaya stops, and looks around, only to find himself lost in the middle of a forest. Suddenly he hears some music in the distance, and slowly follows the sound to find a group of tribals celebrating - something - in song and dance.
He watches from the side, trying to stay discreet. But he's not exactly in camoflage fatigues now is he? And to an eye familiar with a forest, he probably stood out like a neon sign. Kanabhuti, a tribal elder, brings him in, noticing that he is troubled deep within, and amidst much curiosity and fun, determines that Gunadhaya should be allowed to stay here until he sorts himself out. The tribals of course can't decide if he's a mute, or if he's just shy. Gunadhaya of course, says nothing. He doesn't understand this very fast, sing song, language that the tribals are communicating in (we're using an unnamed dialect from the kannada-andhra border, tullu, and konkani here).
After much argument, and about 10 minutes of other languages on stage... Kanabhuti declaims (on-stage in perfect kannada).
"No its not that he's dumb. He's not talking because he can't speak our Paisachi language!"
Replies come in thick and fast...
"Oh he can't speak our paisachi"
"I still think he's dumb"
"shut up what do you know"
"How do we communciate with him?" come the replys from the tribals (once again, in perfect kannada on stage).
"Tell you what, I'll teach him" determines kanabhuti.
And then proceeds to start to teach a willing Gunadhaya Paisachi (kannada), a whole new language in which he can communicate.
Much to the awe and amazement of the tribe. Gunadhaya picks up the language rapidly (about 3 minutes of stage time - in a song that starts with naming the various parts of ones face, and develops into full structured sentences with an ultimate declamation - I can speak Paisachi).
Gunadhaya settles into life, there. Watching as members of other tribes come in and out, meeting Kanubhuti, sharing stories, (Kanabhuti turns out to be an accomplished Griot), telling them of thier problems.
One tribal elder comes to tell Kanubhuti of the impending distruction of his tribe and thier way of life - given the constant encroachment on thier land by plains dwellers. Times are bad for them. Kanubhuti worries about thier stories.
One day Gunadhaya sees a kid riding his uncle who is pretending to be a lion. His memories go back to Satavahana, the oath, his life in the court - all of which he doesn't mind leaving - but Vaishnavi - his close friend - he misses very much.
Kanabhuti asks him where his thoughts are.
"Oh from my past life before I came here."
"You must miss it"
"No, not really - I realise now it wasn't that important."
"Then why the sadness?"
"I miss one person from it."
"Ah"
"Kanabhuti, you seem to be a much loved leader of your people".
"Leader!! HA HA HA HA HA - I can't even get Kaalava to listen to me, you think I could be a leader?"
"Then why to people always come to you and talk to you?"
"We share stories. I collect them." -He says proudly."
"They're a collection of all of our wisdom, and knowledge, they are who we are. Sometimes I think we were only made so that we could tell stories to each other, so that the stories could live through our telling them."
Kanubhuti sees the tribal elder from the other village.
"But I worry. Our tribes are diminishing. After us, who will keep these stories alive?"
"Kanubhuti! I could easily devise a script and write these stories down."
"Write?"
"Yes Write, put them down in symbols on paper, that anyone can read. I would love to write all the stories of your people, and preserve them. I keep thinking when I hear them, that they woudl be enjoyed so much by my friend.. if I were to ever meet her again."
Kanubhuti is skeptical. Read a story? Off a page? Where is the life in that? How can a page give expression? How can a page tell the story with life, like a Griot can?
"Well, if you feel this is what you want to do, then you must do it. Thats how all of us operate here. What can we do to help."
After a brief discussion with the hunters, and leather makers, a plan is hatched to create pages from leather and bark and leaves, and after trying a few opitons, Gunadhaya settles on using his own blood as ink.
The story writing starts, the tribe being demolished is particularly interested in having thier stories preserved.
Pages are made, the stories, keep coming, gunadhaya grows week from the amount of blood he uses, and the tribals start to pitch in. Giving thier blood into these stories, as he sits thier dilligently and writes them.
Seven years pass.
Gunadhaya has now written 7,00,000 verses. Of all the stories of all the tribes in the region. Its quite an achievement. He determines that it is now time to take these stories out into the world, to share them, first with Vaishnavi, and then with the world.
He heads back to the court of Satavahana.
Monday, December 8, 2008
The other side of the breakthrough.
Sometimes, one should temper ones excitment about crossing a boundary, about the other side of which they have no idea. Or something like that. I wonder how many explorers went Yay! Uh-oh. After that wonderful breakthrough I find myself in a whole other medium, through which we progress like mollasses. In this case, the medium of the musical play, where the story's entire progress is done musically.
I didn't know what we were going to do next - yes, I knew where the story needs to go - but how do we establish these tribals, the world that Gunadhaya stumbles upon. The quality of 'difference' between his world and thiers, yet holding onto the potential for interaction between the two. Music was the answer.
I decided that as much as the first section is grounded in realism, and in the representing a world of the court of the king. The second act would be qualitatively entirely different. It started with watching the actors perform Kollatta in a morning class (its kind of like dandia, but its very fast, and thier are a thousand different patterns).
The actors just standing in space, balancing the stage, became the forest, it looked like one, I got them to go into the nearby woods and to just sit with trees and get a sense of them, not just what they looked like, but what they evoked in the actor. They all created thier own bhangi's for the essence of the tree they chose to emulate. So, we have actors, standing across stage, in various poses, with kollatta sticks in thier hands. Eyes closed, quietly making the sounds of the forest. Insects, birds, the occassional animal rustle.
Gunadhaya enters the forest, lost in thoughts of his unjust defeat. Realises while his mind has been preoccupied, his feet have perhaps, wondered a bit too far. I thought that even if he was more cognizant of the forest, his attitude would be, "I have pretty much nothing to live for out there, so I may as well go here, and if it marks the end of me, big deal. I can't speak any known language in the kingdom, I have all this knowledge now rendered useless, I have been uncerimoniously removed from pride-of-place position in court, and I don't get to hang out with the Queen, whose company I have rather enjoyed all these years. (Oh yes, we had a big debate about whether I was turning this into a love story between Gunadhya and the Queen - there's all kinds of Love, I argue, not just the type all you young hormonal adults are thinking about. Good, another moment of learning.)
He enters the forest, and the tree / actor / tribal characther of Kanubhuti starts to sway in the wind, and his branches start to hit those of the tree/actor/tribal characther of Kaalava his wife around whome he's entwined, in tempo. He begins to hum, next thing you know, the two of them break out into a kollatta song, and start a two person kolatta, which immediately develops to a four person kolatta, and then the entire center of the forest joins in, and the tribals are now doing a kolattta with Gunadhaya hiding behind the outer trees, who join in as the tempo rises and gunadhaya has no where to hide.
That - is what made me decide the second section woudl be all about song.
Progress?
- Well, we've got past the forest to Kolatta moment.
- Had the tribals bring gunadhaya into the kollatta
- Then since he's feeling a bit like a fish out of water, go sit on a stump and watch.
- Then the rest of the tribals finish thier kolatta and celebrate a dance nicely done, and then sit around Kanabhuti to hear one of his many stories.
- Kanabhuti tries to start, but everyone is very interested in this new stranger, Kanabhuti recognizes him clothing. (Its similar to the clothing a kings entourage once wore when they came into the forest and killed Sata, and took one of the young tribal boys away).
- Then after instructions by Kalava, the tribals leave Gunadhaya alone for a while, giving him a chance to acclimatize.
- In the meanwhile a tribal family from another space come and visit. Tell Kanabhuti new stories. Which everyone is very excited about. All this is happenning in regional dialects of around karnataka, Tullu, (Some konkani), another variant which the actor insists has no name.
- Gunadhaya is mesmerized by the story telling and slowly shifts to in the circle, so he can try and ge ta sense of the stories being told, even though he doesn't understand a word...
We've also separately out of sequence worked on the song in which gunadhaya learns to speak paisachi (Actors use kannada there - to denote paisachi, the idea of which is communciated imlicitly in the dialogue).
We've also composed the key song of the second act about stories, a huge choral number - so now I just have to block them in place. My lessons in Musical theatre from the New Wolsey in Ipswich are coming in handy.
But god is it so much slower that crafting the first half!
I think the other problem is that I can only articlate this half of the story in point form, and maybe I need to write here the story of Gunadhaya part three to help me get a better flow and feel for the story I'm trying to tell here.
So, expect part 3 soon.
I didn't know what we were going to do next - yes, I knew where the story needs to go - but how do we establish these tribals, the world that Gunadhaya stumbles upon. The quality of 'difference' between his world and thiers, yet holding onto the potential for interaction between the two. Music was the answer.
I decided that as much as the first section is grounded in realism, and in the representing a world of the court of the king. The second act would be qualitatively entirely different. It started with watching the actors perform Kollatta in a morning class (its kind of like dandia, but its very fast, and thier are a thousand different patterns).
The actors just standing in space, balancing the stage, became the forest, it looked like one, I got them to go into the nearby woods and to just sit with trees and get a sense of them, not just what they looked like, but what they evoked in the actor. They all created thier own bhangi's for the essence of the tree they chose to emulate. So, we have actors, standing across stage, in various poses, with kollatta sticks in thier hands. Eyes closed, quietly making the sounds of the forest. Insects, birds, the occassional animal rustle.
Gunadhaya enters the forest, lost in thoughts of his unjust defeat. Realises while his mind has been preoccupied, his feet have perhaps, wondered a bit too far. I thought that even if he was more cognizant of the forest, his attitude would be, "I have pretty much nothing to live for out there, so I may as well go here, and if it marks the end of me, big deal. I can't speak any known language in the kingdom, I have all this knowledge now rendered useless, I have been uncerimoniously removed from pride-of-place position in court, and I don't get to hang out with the Queen, whose company I have rather enjoyed all these years. (Oh yes, we had a big debate about whether I was turning this into a love story between Gunadhya and the Queen - there's all kinds of Love, I argue, not just the type all you young hormonal adults are thinking about. Good, another moment of learning.)
He enters the forest, and the tree / actor / tribal characther of Kanubhuti starts to sway in the wind, and his branches start to hit those of the tree/actor/tribal characther of Kaalava his wife around whome he's entwined, in tempo. He begins to hum, next thing you know, the two of them break out into a kollatta song, and start a two person kolatta, which immediately develops to a four person kolatta, and then the entire center of the forest joins in, and the tribals are now doing a kolattta with Gunadhaya hiding behind the outer trees, who join in as the tempo rises and gunadhaya has no where to hide.
That - is what made me decide the second section woudl be all about song.
Progress?
- Well, we've got past the forest to Kolatta moment.
- Had the tribals bring gunadhaya into the kollatta
- Then since he's feeling a bit like a fish out of water, go sit on a stump and watch.
- Then the rest of the tribals finish thier kolatta and celebrate a dance nicely done, and then sit around Kanabhuti to hear one of his many stories.
- Kanabhuti tries to start, but everyone is very interested in this new stranger, Kanabhuti recognizes him clothing. (Its similar to the clothing a kings entourage once wore when they came into the forest and killed Sata, and took one of the young tribal boys away).
- Then after instructions by Kalava, the tribals leave Gunadhaya alone for a while, giving him a chance to acclimatize.
- In the meanwhile a tribal family from another space come and visit. Tell Kanabhuti new stories. Which everyone is very excited about. All this is happenning in regional dialects of around karnataka, Tullu, (Some konkani), another variant which the actor insists has no name.
- Gunadhaya is mesmerized by the story telling and slowly shifts to in the circle, so he can try and ge ta sense of the stories being told, even though he doesn't understand a word...
We've also separately out of sequence worked on the song in which gunadhaya learns to speak paisachi (Actors use kannada there - to denote paisachi, the idea of which is communciated imlicitly in the dialogue).
We've also composed the key song of the second act about stories, a huge choral number - so now I just have to block them in place. My lessons in Musical theatre from the New Wolsey in Ipswich are coming in handy.
But god is it so much slower that crafting the first half!
I think the other problem is that I can only articlate this half of the story in point form, and maybe I need to write here the story of Gunadhaya part three to help me get a better flow and feel for the story I'm trying to tell here.
So, expect part 3 soon.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Breakthrough!
Woo hoo! Ok, after trying many many different ideas, status games, trying to get them to create an outer symbolic manifestation of relatoinship between two people. After trying to find inner emotion n- ala gestus - doing a whole bunch of fundamental theatre exercises and re-reviewing the scenes uptil now - all in an effort to avoid dealing with a key scene where Gunadhaya leaves Satavahana's court because he has no language to communicate in.
I've thought up a thousand different ways.. long one sided converations between Gunadhaya and the queen. Gunadhaya silent and another gunadhaya behind him providing inner emotional commentary. Gunadhaya walking thorugh the court, meeting people, getting ignored. The slow journey from "popular and much loved gunadhaya" to "whose that guy who never speaks?"
After trying a thousand moments of directorial procrastination in rehearsal. I sat down and charted out the rest of the story with the musician - just in an effort to get him to come up with songs (we'll be using a lot of music and dance in the second half). Finally, walked back in, told the company the rest of the story, and got them ready to do some costume research and some research on tribals - amongst whom Gunadhaya's second bit of the story is set.
When I was left with no recourse - but to deal with what happens NEXT - in that damn moment after Gunadhaya looses the bet due to this amazing conspiracy by Sarvavarman's wife.
"...ok everyone freeze after the third 'long live the king' wherever you are.
Now give me the bhangi (a outward physical manifestation of an inner state - a symbolic body pose) of your charachters reaction to Gunadhaya's silence."
Hmm i wish i could see them all, they're all obscured by each others positions...
ok everyone come to a line a few feet from the front..of stage.
Just so I could see them...
"Oh wait.. that looks good!"
"Gunadhaya! Quick! walk center stage! and face them.
Now everyone give me the bhangi.
Ok gunadhaya tie a cloth around your mouth.
now leave...
OH ONE SEC... QUEEN.. stay back!
Ok. Gunadhaya walk to your spot and turn and face the rest of the actors at exactly the same time as they reach thier line.
Tie the cloth on your mouth.. actors go into your bhangi s at this point.
Gunadhaya leave - queen come forward to where he was center stage as he leaves and reach out to him as he walks into the audience...and when it feels right, just say his name.
"Arun can you give me some flute here please?"
We ran it. The actress playing the queen was in tears when she said
"Gunadhya".
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
*jump jump jump*
Such glee I cannot even begin to tell you!!
I've thought up a thousand different ways.. long one sided converations between Gunadhaya and the queen. Gunadhaya silent and another gunadhaya behind him providing inner emotional commentary. Gunadhaya walking thorugh the court, meeting people, getting ignored. The slow journey from "popular and much loved gunadhaya" to "whose that guy who never speaks?"
After trying a thousand moments of directorial procrastination in rehearsal. I sat down and charted out the rest of the story with the musician - just in an effort to get him to come up with songs (we'll be using a lot of music and dance in the second half). Finally, walked back in, told the company the rest of the story, and got them ready to do some costume research and some research on tribals - amongst whom Gunadhaya's second bit of the story is set.
When I was left with no recourse - but to deal with what happens NEXT - in that damn moment after Gunadhaya looses the bet due to this amazing conspiracy by Sarvavarman's wife.
"...ok everyone freeze after the third 'long live the king' wherever you are.
Now give me the bhangi (a outward physical manifestation of an inner state - a symbolic body pose) of your charachters reaction to Gunadhaya's silence."
Hmm i wish i could see them all, they're all obscured by each others positions...
ok everyone come to a line a few feet from the front..of stage.
Just so I could see them...
"Oh wait.. that looks good!"
"Gunadhaya! Quick! walk center stage! and face them.
Now everyone give me the bhangi.
Ok gunadhaya tie a cloth around your mouth.
now leave...
OH ONE SEC... QUEEN.. stay back!
Ok. Gunadhaya walk to your spot and turn and face the rest of the actors at exactly the same time as they reach thier line.
Tie the cloth on your mouth.. actors go into your bhangi s at this point.
Gunadhaya leave - queen come forward to where he was center stage as he leaves and reach out to him as he walks into the audience...and when it feels right, just say his name.
"Arun can you give me some flute here please?"
We ran it. The actress playing the queen was in tears when she said
"Gunadhya".
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
*jump jump jump*
Such glee I cannot even begin to tell you!!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Rural Life
Of course, there are many little things that remind me that I am
entirely in an all together different kind of world.
entirely in an all together different kind of world.
Waking up in the middle of the night after the moon has set and
waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Waiting. Waiting.
Waiting. Physically checking my face to see if I've opened my eyes.
I'm staring into pitch black, because the nights are ... pitch black.
Bucket baths with water from, get this, an LPG powered geyser. Your in
your birthday suit, in the bathroom, and you first turn on the
cylinder, then fire up the geyser, and run the water, and its HOT -
thank god!
Playing "Whose the Bigger Monkey" with real monkeys. I have to worry a
bit about leaving my windows with bars open when there's fruit in
the room even if I'm IN the room. A troupe of monkeys tend to head
over the guest house roof around 8.15 in the morning each day. One of
these monkeys decided that coming into my room and taking my fruit was
perfectly fine. After threatening sounds and large gestures involving
me flapping my arms under my bedsheets to make me look bigger were
exchanged by us, I am proud to say, I AM the bigger monkey. I have
been advised by one urban friend over the phone that splashing water
at them gets them to run away no matter how many threatning sounds
they make.
"Umm... you've done this right?"
"Sure plenty of times!"
I'm not so sure I want to piss off growly monkeys any more than they would be.
Have a mug of water next to bed just in case. Why though, I have no
idea, the windows are now shut tight.
Home remedies from your village chemist. You have to love that. Who in
very fluent english asked me what was the problem, - I've got a mild
fever - gave me crocin, vitamin B with C in it, and while I'd gone to
him for listrine for my throat and teeth, he said, I don't have it,
and you don't need it, salt water will disinfect just as easily.
The fact that the KSRTC bus conductor who does the overnight Bangalore
- Heggodu drive, parks his bus outside - literally - my door, and
sleeps on my verandah every day. Different conductors sleep thier on
alternate days. (I felt tremendously out of sorts yesterday when they
parked the bus in front of another building yesterday and not in its
usual spot). I think I am begginning to get the sense of a need for
routine and expecting things to be a certain way. Today morning when
the bus showed up at 8.30 instead of 7.30 - again to my consternation,
thankfully he parked where he was supposed to - i tapped the wrist
where my watch should be. He smiled and explained how he had to stop
in sagara to change the oil filter, and we both commiserated with each
other over the maintainence needs that cause minor delay as this one.
Plunging away at the block.
Blocked blocked blocked.
Slept badly last night. Couldn't figure out how I was going to work the next scene. We've got as far as the king succeeds in his exam.
Instead of trying to push past it and come to a point of inspiration - cause none is forthcoming - I went back a bit, and ran over previous stuff, getting the actors to understand staying in the moment, work on knowing what it is they're doing at every point, being receptive to the events transpiring around them, or things happenning to them. We ended up talking about Brechtian choise points. Not this but that. For some reason it really triggered something in me and I went at them with this, in great detail. Watching them come to terms with it, and how it could offer such a wealth of possibilities in performance was highly exciting. I had forgotten about the scene we have to do, and just worked with them on this scene purely using it as an example in which to experiment and try the ideas out.
Breaking down motivations into smaller and smaller parts, understanding the choices your character makes at each point, keeping the charachter and the actor separate. The idea that acting is hard work, showing them all the thought and all the doing that goes into a rehearsal in order to build a performance... i found myself saying to them, the whole point is to not know where the journey is taking you, to have an idea of where you want to go, and get up in rehearsal and try something, be open to things, and be open to failing, and through each expermiment, and observation of each experiment, and each re-experiment, find a way forward.
Wise words for a director who needs to find a way forward in the story he's trying to tell. Its pretty much the only reason I haven't posted part 3 here yet.
:-)
This afternoon will all be about improvisations. What it is to be speechless, voiceless, in a court where everything is communicated through speech. The politics of language begins.
Slept badly last night. Couldn't figure out how I was going to work the next scene. We've got as far as the king succeeds in his exam.
Instead of trying to push past it and come to a point of inspiration - cause none is forthcoming - I went back a bit, and ran over previous stuff, getting the actors to understand staying in the moment, work on knowing what it is they're doing at every point, being receptive to the events transpiring around them, or things happenning to them. We ended up talking about Brechtian choise points. Not this but that. For some reason it really triggered something in me and I went at them with this, in great detail. Watching them come to terms with it, and how it could offer such a wealth of possibilities in performance was highly exciting. I had forgotten about the scene we have to do, and just worked with them on this scene purely using it as an example in which to experiment and try the ideas out.
Breaking down motivations into smaller and smaller parts, understanding the choices your character makes at each point, keeping the charachter and the actor separate. The idea that acting is hard work, showing them all the thought and all the doing that goes into a rehearsal in order to build a performance... i found myself saying to them, the whole point is to not know where the journey is taking you, to have an idea of where you want to go, and get up in rehearsal and try something, be open to things, and be open to failing, and through each expermiment, and observation of each experiment, and each re-experiment, find a way forward.
Wise words for a director who needs to find a way forward in the story he's trying to tell. Its pretty much the only reason I haven't posted part 3 here yet.
:-)
This afternoon will all be about improvisations. What it is to be speechless, voiceless, in a court where everything is communicated through speech. The politics of language begins.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Rough Thoughts
Rough Thoughts.
Firstly, its brilliant to be in this environment. (Did I mention that?) I wake up around 8, shower, get my room tidy (its nice to come back to a tidy room after a day's work. Read the newspaper in a room whose purpose - i think - is only to have newspapers read. Head down to have breakfast at 9.30 (either idilis or dosas) with the students, who have finished thier 7am to 9am class and have showered and got ready for breakfast by now.
We assemble on stage in the main procenium arch theatre for a start at 10. The first few days I tried the various spaces availiable at Ninsasam, the intimate space, with a pit stage in the center, you can either seat audiences in traverse... actually you can configure audiences in any direction there. But the centre of the space is the lowest area. With two steps running the length of the room down to it. I should take pictures shouldn't I? There's also the studio, a flat long space in which they do most of thier morning work. I'm using the proscenium space now.. I love it, 19 actors in space is just.. goregeous to play with. And i'm tryin gto take full advantage of. Its not every play that you get an opportunity to spend the entire time rehearsing on the stage upon which we will inevitably be performing.
Rehearsals run till 1.30 - if I'm reminded that its 1.30. We have a way of getting involved in what we're doing and then having the mess staff get quite annoyed at me showing up with a batch of students for food at 2. IF we break at 1.30 we re-commence at 3. (By which time I have napped, and dealt with digesting the tonnes of rice, and have had a coffee). We then work from 3 till 5.30-6 then tea, then the students pop off to a study session where they do written work from 6.30 till 9. Dinner at 9.30 and then sleep. In a few days, I'll be getting more time with them. Still working on pushing that.
A visitor today to ninasam said to be, so basically you wake up, eat, direct, eat, sleep, direct, eat, relax, eat, sleep and then do it all over again. To which I said. Yep. Isn't that just brilliant!
Its a directing/teaching gig for sure. While we forge ahead and plot through the scenes of this story of Gunadhaya, I have to remind myself sometimes that I'm not working with finely tuned and trained actors.. quite just yet. They have all the skills, but they're still working out how to use them. So time is spent getting through to them, getting a sense of how to get each of them to achieve thier potential, and giving them a few pointers in ways *I think* will help improve thier performance.
The language is turning out to be a total non-issue. I work in Hindi, most get it, for the few that don't, they get a simultaneous translation as I speak... to kannada. Once a scene's 'route-map' is charted out, with who says what to whom and who wants what from whom.. they just go at it. And I check that there's a logical progression to the thought, and then it all seems to naturally fall into place.
Dialogue is being thus devised, and looked after by the students - in particular one who puts down everyone's thought sequences - and a very careful faculty member who later-on with fastidiousness and deliberation, helps them polish it to final performance level. (I'm trying hard not to worry about the fact that I'm on scene 7 in devising and final version dialogue is on scene 1 - though i think it will hit stride at correct times).
The thing that is difficult, and its the problem I knew I would have to consistently contend with from the time I first set foot here. Is working in the regional performance idiom. I'm working with a very western head on my shoulders. My training is directly traceable back to stanislavskian methods and other western methods -brecht for example. To get them to play for realisim or heightened realism on stage, with real motivation, awareness of given circumstances, constant engagment with relationships with other charachters, and keeping the fourth wall intact (for the most part). Its where I"m coming from. I know i don't want to stay in that space. Yakshagana, Kuddiattam, other performance forms here in which there are conventions for representation ... and physical movement and breathing techniques that evoke heightened emotion, all appeal to me.
(There's as much conventional symbolisim in the west, they just don't document them, that a drop of the shoulders means dissapointment, a hand to the mouth could mean hesitation, silencing)
The problem is, how do i invoke these forms - of which my familiarity is minimal - in any informed manner into a play i'm directing. The audience here is a kannadiga one, it understnads these conventions, expects them. So now what?
Possible solutions.
Direct as is, work at it from the realist standpoint. As long as my play is - in my mind - watchable, and has truth in its story telling, and between the actors, it will work. But then, step back and let instructors from ninasam who have been following the process, step in, and heighten what we have. So the actor works from a real impulses. Engage with each charachter and thier own character using the work i've done, but then push the impulse to a more heightened sense of drama.
Direct as is. Once the structural logic is in place (based on what i've provided) relinquish it entirely to a more melodramatic (for lack of a better word - for now) style. Indian theatre has key moments which are severely punctuated. Music, dance, movement, look, pose, all come togehter in intense point forms in order to push a point across.I'm being a bit vague here, but its late, and I'm exhausted, and these are ... rough notes.
I think we'll try to push thier performances within the structure i have provided, with the Ninasam teachers doing a bit of that for me.
I recall a system where the visiting director at a drama school would do the main notes, and then students went off to thier usual instructors for a set of subsidiary notes. Provided the director and teachers stick to set areas of commentary, I think this would be a good way at run - through stage to achieve a more unified performance, suited to audiences here, yet with the structure that i have brought to the table.
In the meanwhile...
We've finished the defeat of gunadhaya in the court. I now have to do a scene which portrays how his inability so speak any of the court languages - renders him invisible.
I've been stumped about this.. but as i write.. i think i'm going to have a second actor who plays gunadhaya as well provide 'gestus' while gunadhaya plays the dumb mute..
He can't speak, people chat about things, he's left out.. and it all comes to a head when the queen cancels his discussion sessions with her... she tries one.. but it doesn't work... obviously.. second one.. she talks of her dissapointment with the king not talking more than a few sanskrit things at anytime.. the third one.. she cancels...
he leaves...
i think he refinds motivation in the forest .. to bring these stories to the queen... - ala somadeva in the KSS - and when he returns ... she's gone, dead..
thus prompting the burning... oh.. but i haven't told you that bit yet... ;-)
Firstly, its brilliant to be in this environment. (Did I mention that?) I wake up around 8, shower, get my room tidy (its nice to come back to a tidy room after a day's work. Read the newspaper in a room whose purpose - i think - is only to have newspapers read. Head down to have breakfast at 9.30 (either idilis or dosas) with the students, who have finished thier 7am to 9am class and have showered and got ready for breakfast by now.
We assemble on stage in the main procenium arch theatre for a start at 10. The first few days I tried the various spaces availiable at Ninsasam, the intimate space, with a pit stage in the center, you can either seat audiences in traverse... actually you can configure audiences in any direction there. But the centre of the space is the lowest area. With two steps running the length of the room down to it. I should take pictures shouldn't I? There's also the studio, a flat long space in which they do most of thier morning work. I'm using the proscenium space now.. I love it, 19 actors in space is just.. goregeous to play with. And i'm tryin gto take full advantage of. Its not every play that you get an opportunity to spend the entire time rehearsing on the stage upon which we will inevitably be performing.
Rehearsals run till 1.30 - if I'm reminded that its 1.30. We have a way of getting involved in what we're doing and then having the mess staff get quite annoyed at me showing up with a batch of students for food at 2. IF we break at 1.30 we re-commence at 3. (By which time I have napped, and dealt with digesting the tonnes of rice, and have had a coffee). We then work from 3 till 5.30-6 then tea, then the students pop off to a study session where they do written work from 6.30 till 9. Dinner at 9.30 and then sleep. In a few days, I'll be getting more time with them. Still working on pushing that.
A visitor today to ninasam said to be, so basically you wake up, eat, direct, eat, sleep, direct, eat, relax, eat, sleep and then do it all over again. To which I said. Yep. Isn't that just brilliant!
Its a directing/teaching gig for sure. While we forge ahead and plot through the scenes of this story of Gunadhaya, I have to remind myself sometimes that I'm not working with finely tuned and trained actors.. quite just yet. They have all the skills, but they're still working out how to use them. So time is spent getting through to them, getting a sense of how to get each of them to achieve thier potential, and giving them a few pointers in ways *I think* will help improve thier performance.
The language is turning out to be a total non-issue. I work in Hindi, most get it, for the few that don't, they get a simultaneous translation as I speak... to kannada. Once a scene's 'route-map' is charted out, with who says what to whom and who wants what from whom.. they just go at it. And I check that there's a logical progression to the thought, and then it all seems to naturally fall into place.
Dialogue is being thus devised, and looked after by the students - in particular one who puts down everyone's thought sequences - and a very careful faculty member who later-on with fastidiousness and deliberation, helps them polish it to final performance level. (I'm trying hard not to worry about the fact that I'm on scene 7 in devising and final version dialogue is on scene 1 - though i think it will hit stride at correct times).
The thing that is difficult, and its the problem I knew I would have to consistently contend with from the time I first set foot here. Is working in the regional performance idiom. I'm working with a very western head on my shoulders. My training is directly traceable back to stanislavskian methods and other western methods -brecht for example. To get them to play for realisim or heightened realism on stage, with real motivation, awareness of given circumstances, constant engagment with relationships with other charachters, and keeping the fourth wall intact (for the most part). Its where I"m coming from. I know i don't want to stay in that space. Yakshagana, Kuddiattam, other performance forms here in which there are conventions for representation ... and physical movement and breathing techniques that evoke heightened emotion, all appeal to me.
(There's as much conventional symbolisim in the west, they just don't document them, that a drop of the shoulders means dissapointment, a hand to the mouth could mean hesitation, silencing)
The problem is, how do i invoke these forms - of which my familiarity is minimal - in any informed manner into a play i'm directing. The audience here is a kannadiga one, it understnads these conventions, expects them. So now what?
Possible solutions.
Direct as is, work at it from the realist standpoint. As long as my play is - in my mind - watchable, and has truth in its story telling, and between the actors, it will work. But then, step back and let instructors from ninasam who have been following the process, step in, and heighten what we have. So the actor works from a real impulses. Engage with each charachter and thier own character using the work i've done, but then push the impulse to a more heightened sense of drama.
Direct as is. Once the structural logic is in place (based on what i've provided) relinquish it entirely to a more melodramatic (for lack of a better word - for now) style. Indian theatre has key moments which are severely punctuated. Music, dance, movement, look, pose, all come togehter in intense point forms in order to push a point across.I'm being a bit vague here, but its late, and I'm exhausted, and these are ... rough notes.
I think we'll try to push thier performances within the structure i have provided, with the Ninasam teachers doing a bit of that for me.
I recall a system where the visiting director at a drama school would do the main notes, and then students went off to thier usual instructors for a set of subsidiary notes. Provided the director and teachers stick to set areas of commentary, I think this would be a good way at run - through stage to achieve a more unified performance, suited to audiences here, yet with the structure that i have brought to the table.
In the meanwhile...
We've finished the defeat of gunadhaya in the court. I now have to do a scene which portrays how his inability so speak any of the court languages - renders him invisible.
I've been stumped about this.. but as i write.. i think i'm going to have a second actor who plays gunadhaya as well provide 'gestus' while gunadhaya plays the dumb mute..
He can't speak, people chat about things, he's left out.. and it all comes to a head when the queen cancels his discussion sessions with her... she tries one.. but it doesn't work... obviously.. second one.. she talks of her dissapointment with the king not talking more than a few sanskrit things at anytime.. the third one.. she cancels...
he leaves...
i think he refinds motivation in the forest .. to bring these stories to the queen... - ala somadeva in the KSS - and when he returns ... she's gone, dead..
thus prompting the burning... oh.. but i haven't told you that bit yet... ;-)
Monday, December 1, 2008
The Story of Gunadhaya part 2.
{{Note, I'm writing this as we continue devising the play. We're
working in Brechtian Episodes. 15 of them, each titled. The following
section is called Sarvavarman's Victory". We 'write' this during the
rehearsal, based on the points we want to reach in the story. The
quesiton of how we get to those points come from the actors who are
working on thier charachters behalf in the areas of backstory,
understanding thier given circumstances, and outlining and following
what it is they want in each scene and at each moment. ) The kids are
going to kill me because i'm going to go in this afternoon and change
the scene before this a bit more to highlight Sathavana's ability to
agree to such an evil scheme. As for Gunadhaya. well his journey only
truly begins after this. Both Vaishnavi and Devaki are actreses who I
first just assigned the role of 'this one's wife, that one's wife -
Vaishnavi, I wanted her to be the paragon of good behaviour, graceful
and charming, so that when she looses it with the King during the
water sports she really looses it - its worked, she's taken to the
charachter like a duck to water ... pun intended. But Devaki, who
didn't even exist (well kind of does in the KSS - I need to check if
she has a name in there and if she does, use it) she has taken on a
charachter of lady macbethian proportions, from her moment of empathy
with the king in the first scene where she explains to a new comer to
the court why the king doesn't know sanskrit, and in it says 'not
knowing sanskrit here is like a curse" to having a charachter who
wants to push her husband to points of greatness, and is now faced
with a moment where she has to confess her own deep secret in order to
ensure his victory) we did that scene today, and i .. :-) :-) :-)
) }}
working in Brechtian Episodes. 15 of them, each titled. The following
section is called Sarvavarman's Victory". We 'write' this during the
rehearsal, based on the points we want to reach in the story. The
quesiton of how we get to those points come from the actors who are
working on thier charachters behalf in the areas of backstory,
understanding thier given circumstances, and outlining and following
what it is they want in each scene and at each moment. ) The kids are
going to kill me because i'm going to go in this afternoon and change
the scene before this a bit more to highlight Sathavana's ability to
agree to such an evil scheme. As for Gunadhaya. well his journey only
truly begins after this. Both Vaishnavi and Devaki are actreses who I
first just assigned the role of 'this one's wife, that one's wife -
Vaishnavi, I wanted her to be the paragon of good behaviour, graceful
and charming, so that when she looses it with the King during the
water sports she really looses it - its worked, she's taken to the
charachter like a duck to water ... pun intended. But Devaki, who
didn't even exist (well kind of does in the KSS - I need to check if
she has a name in there and if she does, use it) she has taken on a
charachter of lady macbethian proportions, from her moment of empathy
with the king in the first scene where she explains to a new comer to
the court why the king doesn't know sanskrit, and in it says 'not
knowing sanskrit here is like a curse" to having a charachter who
wants to push her husband to points of greatness, and is now faced
with a moment where she has to confess her own deep secret in order to
ensure his victory) we did that scene today, and i .. :-) :-) :-)
) }}
Three days pass, Sarvavarman seems to have taken on the kings recent
charachteristic - that of inaccessibility, his brahmin colleagues
wonder why he won't talk to them, he's seen pacing up and down in his
chamber non stop and the only person who ever gets to talk to him is
Devaki (we like the name-so it got used) his wife, that to for two or
three minutes at a time max.
Things are bad. How did he get into this mess. Gunadhya Gunadhya
Gunadhya, always winning sanskrit debates. Always using his wisdom so
easily...
"Swaami?"
"Leave me alone, I'm trying to think".
"You've stopped thinking, now you're just worrying about your impending faliure"
"Does everyone think I'm going to fail?"
Devaki doesn't reply.
"Oh God... all my years of service in this court, from the time of
Deepakarni, are all going to go down the drain".
"The whole court is talking about the challenge you posed, but what I
don't understand is why did you do it."
"The King had just promised Gunadhaya anything he wanted, when he
suceeds he would be the most honored of Brahmins! I couldn't just sit
and watch, I had to do something! Gunadhaya, he always comes up with
the solutions, he makes wisdom look so easy, in his presence I feel
like all my efforts amount to nothing..."
"You need to stop worrying about this. I have the solution"
"Solution, what solution could you possibly have?"
Devaki hesitates before making a confession that could end her life as
she knows it.
"Sarvavarman, when I first saw you, I didn't know any Sanskrit, but I
fell in love with you, and wanted to be your wife. So in the six
months I had before officially meeting you. I went to a pandit and he
got me to learn-by-heart a number of sanskrit answers. So that I would
always have a standard answer for you when you asked me anything."
"Learn by heart? "
"Yes, I mugged up Sanskrit Sholkas to impress you"
"The wife of Sarvavarman, one of the foremost authorities on Sanskrit
Grammar in this country! His wife learned by heart?"
"Please! before you say anything or do anything Rash.. listen! That is
how it started, when we first got married, and I didn't know the
correct response.. I would just stay quiet, you used to think I was so
shy. But after staying in your learned presence for a few years, I got
better, and now, today, I speak it fluently and you are happy."
Sarvavarman is speechless.
"What I did with you works! The king can do this with the court as well!"
"How will we get the King to agree?"
"He just wants to impress the queen... he'll do anything to do it as
quickly as possible."
"What about the Queen?"
"You leave that to me."
Convincing Satavahana was easy. And in a few days, the King was busy
mugging up appropriate Sanskrit Shloka's for various occassions. In
the mean while, Sarvavarman and his cotire of Bhramins arranged to
feed the king predetermined questions at the time of the examination.
Vaishnavi, excited to find out about the process asks Devaki, her
trusted friend and confidante about the progress her husband is having
with Satavahana.
"Its good, the king is a very fast learner! It will be wonderful for
you to have discussions with him in sanskrit wouldn't it? "
"I don't even dare to dream it lest it may not come true!"
"What would the first thing you would like to hear from your King in Sanskrit?"
"To hear him express his love for me in Sanskrit would be the most
wonderful thing. I would ask him to discuss Love."
Immediately Sathavana is schooled in a number of Shloka's about love.
6 Months pass, and the time of the exam is at hand. The whole court
has gathered, and the King - ready to perform is asked questions. All
of which the Bhramins are reading of prearranged question papers (one
would think they could have mugged that at the very least).
Gunadhaya sensing something is amiss stands to ask a question. He is
immediately put down by the Sarvavarman's coitere.
" This was not the predetermined structure that had been agreed upon
for the kings exam. Plus you are not a disinterested party. You nor
Sarvavarman may not ask questions!"
The king doesn't object.
Gunadhaya insists, "well if I can't ask a question, at least allow the
Queen, it is in her interests that this entire exercise was started!"
All is tense, what will the queen ask?
She asks him to comment on an aspect of Love.
Sarvavarman wins! For Gunadhaya, all is lost!
From that moment, he stops speaking the three languages of the court.
...next Gunadhaya leaves a court where his silence renders him invisible....
Friday, November 28, 2008
The Story of Gunadhaya part 1.
The story of Gunadhaya (a quick modernized version) by Jehan Manekshaw
adapted from C W Tawney's Ocean of Stories and Arshia Sattar's Kathasaritsagara. Inspired by an oral retelling of the same by Mrinal Pande over coffee at the India International Center two years ago.
In the Kingdom of Pratishthana, in the court of the great king Satavahana, there was a courtier by the name of Gunadhaya. Gunadhaya was loved by all the Kings subjects and most of the Kings court, where discourse in the various grammars and the three court langugages was popular sport. Gunadhaya was the most knowledgeable and erudite of speakers, and his travels across the country from a young age, studying under sages from the four corners of the kingdom gave him. His ability to engage people in the highest quality of discourse and debate endeared him to the queen, let us call her Vaishnavi, who herself had been trained from childhood in the great Sanskrit dialectical traditions that existed in her own father's court. When you are popular, you have enemies, and it was no surprise that another wise and learned courtier, Sarvavarma, didn't appreciate Gunadhaya's undue influence in the court, even though he was rather clever.
All would be well and lovely if not for one problem, Satavahana, the king, wasn't the most eloquent of Sanskrit speakers, to put things mildly. It was not that he was unwise; it's just that his wisdom was of a more worldly kind, which was useful in matters of ruling the kingdom, but seemed irrelevant in a court that was much more interested in the great traditions of Sanskrit discourse and the high culture associated with it. Satavahana's lack of Sanskrit knowledge and a better understanding of the common tongue came from the fact that he was a feral child, from the forest discovered by the previous king of Pratishtanha, a childless widower, during a hunt. Satavahana was riding on the back of a Lion. Taking this as a good omen the king Killed the lion and adopted Satavahana as the heir to the throne. It didn't help his current standings in the court that he was brought up by the palace slaves, and that too mainly in the kitchen where all the fresh game was brought in from the hunt.
Things came to a head one hot summer afternoon when the King, while playing with his queen in the pool was getting the better of them in the water splashing department. The queen, tired of the drenching, "her bosoms sagging under the weight of the water in her blouse" asked the king in well constructed Sanskrit to stop throwing water on her. Modakang dehi' - ma udakang dehi - don't give (throw) water. The king, hearing this, mistook it for a similar sounding Sanskrit word that meant sweets ('modakam dehi' - give me sweets), and possibly slightly confused by the strange requests that women make, ordered sweets to be brought, and started pelting her with them. Highly irritated, and at the end of her tether about having a husband who spoke like a common palace servant, the queen finally lost her cool, and in front of all their attendants ridiculed his inability to differentiate a common place noun-verb conjugation from an entirely different word. Red faced, Satavahana, the man who would use a Lion as his vehicle , stormed into his inner sanctum and proceeded to give instructions to not be disturbed by anyone. We like to call this the Royal Sulk
While the king continued to hiding in his inner sanctum, court matters started piling up in front of the Queen. We should mention here, that she was also secretly feeling a bit sheepish about her loss of composure and her insulting of a man who was by all other accounts, wise, wonderful and smart and knew a thing or two about dealing with Lions. Thus motivated, she ordered Gunadhaya to attend to the king and get him out of his chambers at any cost.
Enter Sarvavarman, a chief courtier and now very much in favour due to the necessity of assisting the Queen in matters during the Royal Sulk. Privy to the conversation, Sarvavarman manages to ride on the coat tails of Gunadhaya as he uses his infinite wisdom to sneak past the Royal Guard into the Kings chambers and attend upon the King.
"Oh great King, the Queen misses you, we ask for you to Grace us with your presence once again", begins Gunadhaya.
"Oh great King, the Court misses you, please, come back and attend the matters of state that you are so good at" adds Sarvavarman.
"I'm not going to bring my royal presence in front of a Queen nor a Court that only cares about the fact that I can't speak properly. They make me feel like I'm an Idiot! No one respects me!"
"That's not true oh King, you are the son of Lions" says Sarvavarman, taking the initiative.
"Not true? So its normal for people to ridicule the son of a Lion! You can go to hell!"
Gunadhaya reasons. "King, you are wise, you are smart, from living in a forest you learned how to rule a Kingdom, give me some time, I know the three great Grammars of the world, usually one learns Sanskrit in 12 years, I could teach you Sanskrit and make you a master of the toungue in six."
Not to be outdone, Sarvavarman counters, "King, we are all wise men here, some wiser than others, what Gunadhaya claims he can do in six years,with you, I know I can do it in six months!"
"Six Months?"
"That's impossible Sarvavarman," argues Gunadhaya, "none of the methods of Grammar that exist today allow you to take command of this language in Six months. None. You can't do it. If you can, I swear I will stop speaking all three of the court languages for ever."
"Oh, well if I can't do it, I swear I'll walk with your slippers on my feet for the next 12 years!"
"Umm excuse me. I'm still here."
"Oh sorry Sire." Say both, slightly flustered.
"So between the two of you, I'll either learn Sanskrit in Six Months, or Six Years."
"Yes sire."
"Ok. Lets do it, in the mean time, I better get back to running things."
Gunadhaya and Sarvavarman leave.
Sarvavarman, distraught at the unneccesary bravado displayed by him as a result of his seethign jealousy and ambition. Stops to pontificate. "Oh boy, I'm in it now."
.... next episode. Sarvavarman figures out how to really do it. With a little help.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
A journey begins
Ninasam is far away from the rest of the world. I speak of course of
the new geography, the one that is not measured in distances, miles,
time taken to get there, but the one that is measured in terms of
accessibility, and connectivity, and proximity to 'centers' and 'hubs'
like Bombay - which today is suffering for being such a hub - but more
on that later.
the new geography, the one that is not measured in distances, miles,
time taken to get there, but the one that is measured in terms of
accessibility, and connectivity, and proximity to 'centers' and 'hubs'
like Bombay - which today is suffering for being such a hub - but more
on that later.
You can get to Ninasam a variety of ways, by Air to Bangalore and then
an overnight bus, by air to mangalore, and then a 5 hour drive, by
train to Honnavar, on the Konkan railway, an hour past Goa (oh the
temptation to get off the train there!) and then a 2 hour drive to the
Taluk headquarters of Sagar, and 10 km down the road to Heggodu. In
the middle of Arecanut growing country, farm country and plantations
that extend for 100 km in all directions, and in the middle of all of
it, a theatre. 750 seats, proscenium arch, 24 channels of dimmers for
lighting, and a beatiful stage space upon which to perform. This is
the flagship of the Ninasam Theatre Instititue, where each year, a 100
applicants vie for 20 seats to train in the best of contemporary
Indian stage craft. This is where I am.
I chose to get here by train, all in all, its the most direct and
straightforward way here from Bombay. It also gave me something
crucial for any one coming from the city to a place like this. Time to
switch gears. I was embarking on a theatre project with thier
students, half way through thier course, to devise from scratch the
tale of Gunadhya, only documented in Somdeva's Kathasaritsagar or the
Ocean of Stories. Not even having a script in hand, but just a story
from the opening section of a compedium of stories - reputed to be the
oldest collection of Indian stories on hand.
If that wasn't enough of a challenge. I'm here, directing a play for
performance, in Kannada. For someone who speaks only english, gets by
in Hindi, and knows a smattering of words from Tamil and Malayalam,
how exactly is this going to work?
I also needed the sleep, because the night before I got on the train,
I spent up, filming. For some reason unknown to me and generally not
in my great plan of life, I found myself playing a Gay, Coke-snorting,
South Bombay Parsi Socialite in a film. Nice detour?
14 hours of train and 2 hours of car later, I found myself in Heggodu,
a quiet, orderly village, whose center piece is the NTI Theatre.
In that absolute silence, which was quite deafening after months of
incessant city noise, hours of trian rattles, and then a taxi, I
walked through the small campus to find the students - on all fours,
extending thier bellies downward and then arching thier backs in time
with thier breath.
So this was them, young, in thier late teens early twenties, here was
something I'd been dying to engage with ever since I got back to
India. Actors. Complete total, actors. People who are training and
doing, and living and breathing this craft. (In this case, at the
begginning of thier careers).
Language be damned, its going to be a non-issue in ten minutes of our
communicating and getting an idea of what is to be achieved.
The idea. Is to tell this story.
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