Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 1, Number 2. November 2018. ISSN: 2581-7094
Shadows in Theatre
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Avi Chakraborty
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Macbeth, Act V sc. v)
Shadow
theatre is a special form of theatre in which characters come alive in shadows
and play their part in front of a strong source of light so that their shadows play
out the story on a screen. Shadows in theatre are another thing. It is the use light
and shadow as a technique in theatre. It is about creation of shadows, elimination
of unwanted shadows and utilisation of the created shadows in order to heighten
the dramatic effect. Shadows create an impression on the minds of spectators
that last longer than the brief presence or movement of characters on stage.
We
who have begun performing and directing plays located a little away from the
city of Kolkata which is the cultural hub of Bengal never got to learn about
the theories and techniques of dramatics in a systematic way from the
beginning. We had no libraries or laboratories.
We had no university classes or college courses acquainting us with the rules
of drama, no Nandan or Coffee House nurturing us. We might say in chorus with
Patrick Geddes “But a city is more than a place
in space, it is a drama in time.”1
We learnt from borrowed books, read in open libraries. We had to develop our own technique through a series of attempts, through crude trial and error method. We learnt a lot from our mistakes.
We learnt from borrowed books, read in open libraries. We had to develop our own technique through a series of attempts, through crude trial and error method. We learnt a lot from our mistakes.
We
formed a theatre group and worked with invited directors in order to learn the
techniques. One of the theatre directions from where we learnt the captivating
effect of shadows is one by Udaynil Bhattacharyya. He had staged Nabendu Sen’s Mallyabhumi. It was a Hobson’s choice because
we were only four in the group then under the banner of Ashoknagar. Throughout the
process of his direction we had a lot of questions popping up in our minds like
– is this a set of dialogues? Is this all about poetry? Where is the play then?
When the play was finally produced we knew how much we learnt from it. Of the other
techniques used in the play one was the shadows of two figures thrown on the cyclorama.
Shadows of two people wrestling. Soon the wrestling was not confined to the two
figures. The state entered, politics entered, socio-economic condition entered
and become the two figures that were wrestling in front stage . Wrestling had become
a metaphor with the underscore of Jakir Hussain’s tabla. Much of the drama was communicated through this
wrestling. We learnt how shadows create impressions that are bigger than
reality.
Since
I was one of the wrestlers I could not see my own shadow. Later when a TV
Channel invited us in their festival and telecasted the play I could see myself,
my shadow and the effect my shadow had created. The reality of the wrestlers
and the shadows on the cyclorama created a magic. I fell in love with shadows.
Creativity happens unconsciously. We might theorise
about it later , read and quote profound thoughts on harnessing the mind and
opening up creative intelligence but that was the moment I realised what Lacan meant
when he said “The structure of the
unconscious is similar to a language”. It begins in quiet moments of
appreciation like these.
My
first stage direction was Operation 2010. Written by
Bratya Basu in 2009 it is a play on
football and the potential of India winning the World Cup in 2010. The play focuses on our irrational approach
towards the game and the condescending way in which most people here regard it.
It questions whether the
‘corporate’ men have done anything for the game at all. It also draws
parallels between football and theatre as ‘performances’.
In the play a character called Prabir Mitra enters a
conference by mistake. He confronts the men in the meeting and protests in a
shadow fight.
The
set was designed by Soumitra. The conference room had the look of a coffin.
Prabir Mitra’s dreams of making his son a footballer got shattered and he with
his dreams entered the coffin. We had used a white transparent sheet on one
side of the coffin that made the inside of the coffin visible to the spectators.
Mitra’s swimming inside the coffin was symbolic of his desire to live. The
single voice of Prabir Mitra then merged with many voices and he becomes a
representative of many. Here, more than all the lights we used on stage, the
shadow created more emphasis. It added to the emotions of all that was
happening on stage. This is how I began my journey with shadows.
I
got introduced to shadows when I was quite young. A blue mortuary van wheeled
my father away blowing out black smoke. I heard voices whisper around me that destiny
had removed the shadow under which I was growing. Did destiny remove the shadow
or had shadows become my destiny? Protagonists die in theatre and shadows are
cast. Shadow cities, shadow actions are created within a confined space and
close with the curtain.
My
next major experiment with shadows in theatre is Bratya Basu’s Mrityu, Iswar Jounata, (Death, God and Sexuality).The play was
staged in 2015. It deals with a boy’s journey through death, god and sexuality.
Shadows
played a important part in this play. Shadow was used in two ways here–
1 ) Through
shadow art – that is an art for which the performers did not personally feel
very acutely
2) Through video projectors shadows
were cast on the bodies of protagonists on stage.
Through
the dark shadows some hypocrite men walked around the stage and in the light
focussed from the projector actors walked towards an indefinite shadow kingdom
where Bhair’s mother uncovered her back, khoi and oblation offerings to gods
are merged together. Death loomed large and the protagonists fled like shadow
figures and we came to the death of the protagonists.
My
next experiment with shadows is in Nemesis. I had staged Rabishankar Bal’s
novel Toimurer Shashoner Poroborti Odhyay (After the Reign of Taimur) It is
a tale of a city where lights are never put out. In this play shadow came with its own
characteristics as though it was a protagonist of the play. In the well- lit
city resided some shadow men and women. They surround the protagonist Joseph K.
K. Then these starving men and women these barely clothed men and women shout and
begin to walk .The city broke apart. Shadow life dominated the play.
This
is how I have travelled from one shadow to another:
Chayayuge
uki dite
Neelche
rate ekla manush
[peeping
inside the shadow yug
Lone
man in blue night]
(The Blood-thirsty
Night)
Ratbireter Raktopishach
(The Blood -thirsty Night ) is my
play on pulp fiction. Here I wove three
stories together. I have used here again the technique of shadows where the
protagonist Sri Bhrigu dies and the constellations rotate in the backdrop and fall
apart. It could best be shown by using the technique of light and shadows.
My
next experiment with shadows is Samayaan.
Story Bratya Basu. The play stages two rooms, two floors, two relationships, but
one perspective. It is a metaphor of time. It remains immobile in the backdrop
as a big clock with a broken pendulum
and an empty photoframe. In this strong play the protagonists came on stage not to capture light but rather to
capture shadows. There are references to communist movement, to Jibanananda Das’s poems. Broken images fell
and rose in the sea. Everything was
bright alive in a shadow. At the end of the play the broken sins of life, the bug eaten past , the performance of an undesired life mixed with snowfall fell on
stage. I moved the protagonist to the shadow in order to look at him through a
metaphor. Then entered a procession of shadow people.
I
have also staged Nabarun Bhattacharyya’s Lubdhak
or Death of a Shadow Dog. The story
deals with ethnic cleansing and where
heads come together and decide that the best possible way to kill a street dog
in a project of ‘ethnic cleansing’ is the concentration camp. It is an apocalyptic
fable in which a group of street dogs struggle
to stay out of the concentration camp.
As the name of the play suggests shadows were crucial
and dominant in this play which portrayed a kind of doomsday landscape.
My
new play Me, Anukulda and Them, also
written by Bratya Basu is being staged
now n Kolakata in theatre festivals. I
will not be able to see it critically enough to register my judgements before I
can distance myself from it. But shadows
remain here as it did in all the plays I staged.
While
dealing with shadows on stage we were confronted with a myth that one could
erase shadows by using stronger lights. But more lights cast more shadows. But
one can soften the contrast by using more lights and moderating them thereby
edging off the acute emotions of the spectators. We can know what kind of shadows
we want by prior sketches and measurements. Sometimes for naturalistic projects
shadows from plants and foliage for are used for outdoor scenes. Shadows of windows
or door patterns are projected on stage to construct a make- belief house. It
is most used to portray mental conditions. Shadow of fetters, chains, or other
objects are also projected to portray the condition of the human mind we are
dealing with in the play. Abstract gobo designs can have a variety of
application like fantasy, dream or again to portray the state of human mind. In
some plays, mostly in plays that consists of series of monologues, all the
actors are on stage and lights switch
from one actor to another keeping the others in shadows thus moving and
engaging the attention of the spectators to the actor who will be active for
that span of time. Sometimes shadows of
a single human being create a larger- than- human image like in Indira Parthasarathy’s
Aurangzeb. The lights from right and
left throw long shadows of his hands on both the sides with distinct shadows of
his fingers that tremble and grow
and become fetters imprisoning him. Shadows
imprison us. They also release us. As stage director I see my works as one long
tryst with shadows.
That's the magic of art and the magic of theatre: it has the
power to transform an audience, an individual, or en masse, to transform them
and give them an epiphanal experience that changes their life, opens their
hearts and their minds and the way they think.
Brian Stokes Mitchell
Reference:
1. Geddes, Patrick Records of the Masques are held amongst the Patrick Geddes papers at the
University of Strathclyde.