Dr Gautam Chatterjee

“A play needs an idea, not ideology. An idea is a seed that stems in all scenes. I feel this seed must not be seen during the presentation, like any real seed.

—Gautam Chatterjee

Dr Gautam Chatterjee (born 1963), who defines himself as a poet in the ancient sense of a seer, shares his emerging vision through art quintessentially. He was awarded Nad Vachaspati in 2016 by Nad Aura, New Delhi. His noted stage presentations are The Cross Purpose (Albert Camus), King Lear (William Shakespeare) and Swapnavasavadutta (Bhasa). The list of his publications includes two collections of plays Adhure Rag (1996), Dashrupak (2006), a poetry collection Anand Bhairavi, essay books on drama Abhinay Shastra, Agamas in Indian Dramatics and Musicology, Sangit Vimarsh and a collection of interviews with great masters such as Satyajit Ray, Utpal Dutta, B V Karanth, Badal Sircar and K N Panicker from Penguin. His oft-quoted book is White Shadow of Consciousness (2012), and oft-quoted play is the one on Pt. Madanmohan Malviya. He was a columnist in The Hindu on classical music. In the last two decades he was involved with teaching drama at Banaras Hindu University and film in FTII, Pune. His translated works include Tantraloka by Abhinavagupta in seven volumes (2008-2015, from classical Sanskrit to English), Natyashastra in Hindi, English and Bengali with Abhinava's commentary, Gyanaganja by Pt. Gopinath Kaviraj (Bengali to English). Presently, he is engaged in creating the visual poetry through film art. From the last couple of years, he constantly screens his nonfiction films based on Natyashastra, Dhrupad, Banaras Gharana of music, Kashi Shaiva Darshan and Tantra. Classical Cinema (2018) is his latest book. The current interview took place on the 29th of June, 2018.

Rachana Pandey (RP): What is Dramaturgy? What is the fundamental difference between Indian and Western dramaturgy?

Gautam Chatterjee (GC): Dramaturgy means the functional methodology or the working pedagogy for acting, writing and staging a play. This is what Indian dramaturgy, Natyashastra (NS) is. From Aristotle to Grotowsky, we find method acting only. The basic difference between Western and Indian dramaturgy is, that in Western drama, there exists the concept of a director. Western theatre requires a director, for western mind thinks the human consciousness is dichotomous i.e. brain and mind, whereas, in the approach of Indian mind, human consciousness consists of brain, mind and Atman (Brain is the instrument of mind. Brain is physical organ. Mind is abstract. Mind is thought, as I sense. Thought is a material process. In western view, mind is somewhere located in brain. References: The Conscious Mind by David Chalmers and Theater of Consciousness by J J Baars). So Indian philosophy says Atman is the only actor who acts with a sense of a witness being that directs or suggests that actor at the same time, in other words, actor acts according to his own dancer, the ACTOR (Atman), his witnessing being. This being has an all-inclusive character, even the audience. So a part of the acting actor on the stage presents in each spectator as homunculus. And the Indian Dramaturgy, Natyashastra, is from Indian philosophy, regarded as Pancham Veda.    

RP: But the concept of a director is accepted in the modern Indian theatre. It means that modern Indian theatre is westernized. 

GC: Exactly. On this topic I had presented a paper in a seminar titled 'Western impact on Indian Drama', organised by the Department of English, Mumbai University in 2008, chaired by noted theatre and film personality Jabbar Patel, witnessed by G. P. Deshpande and Dinesh Thakur. I explained how the RADA, London borrowed this director concept from film art in its institution and then, Ebrahim Alkazi took it from there to NSD, New Delhi. The worst part of this non-essential concept is as follows: All we know the names K N Panicker, B V Karanth, Ratan Thiyam and others, but none remembers the name of any actor in their groups of at least 40 people, active for years, say, four decades on the stage. 

RP: You have done studies on Bharata Muni, the creator of the magnum opus Natyashastra. Did he create NS in Banaras?

GC: My research (thesis, fundamental research, not a dissertation) is about the influence of Agam in NS (Agama in Sanskrit is the philosophical exegesis of Tantra. The texts. The precepts. It etymologically means 'what comes from before', a priori. Tantra etymologically means the explanation of wisdom, i.e. Veda). Yes, seer Bharat was in the period of Kardam, Kashyap and other munis (monks) in the then Kashi (Anand Kanan, Reference: Aadi Kashi se Varanasi Tak by Vidula Jaiswal), i.e., after Buddha (5th century B. C.), and before Maurya (Bimbsar) dynasty.

RP: Is it possible to separate a writer or a director from a particular ideology that s/he personally believes in?   

GC: I can discuss an idea, not ideology, for a play needs an idea, the seed that stems in all scenes hiding this seed all along. I feel this seed must not be seen during the presentation, like any real seed. Even the vocabulary in NS for the idea is Beej. 

RP: The main purpose of theatre is either to entertain or to teach the masses or both equally, yet it has long been debated. What is your point of view?   

GC: For me, the purpose is – to entertain in the sense of educate and elucidate.  

RP: Please tell us something about your plays. What are the main concerns in your writings and directions?      

GC: My plays are the hidden wonders of my own inner world, resemble somehow with the outer, apparent real worlds. My audience used to say these were psycho-spiritual plays staged in dramatic accent. I feel the only conflict in a human being is between one’s material and spiritual existence. Man (in the sense of Human being) wants to change. He wants to change the world. This wish in man is through millennia. He is not satisfied with 'what is'. He thinks 'what should be', out of his false sense of superiority. This wrong turn 'the sense of what should be', the thought is the only cause of all problems. Thus the root conflict is between what is and what should be. Therefore he wants to change the world. Therefore he is only concerned about his material advancement. But I feel, his substance is spiritual. He can only change himself. The only possibility is spiritual advancement, i.e., art can only influence the society, cannot change the world. This has only been my king concern in writings. Since I believe in Indian dramaturgy i.e. Natyashastra, that cannot imagine any concept of a director, so I never direct. My stage presentation is always bereft of a director. 

RP: You have directed plays on various sites including Gurudham Temple Premises which is a heritage site at Durgakund in Varanasi as well as in proscenium spaces of Nagri Natak Mandali and Pt. Omkarnath Thakur Auditorium, Banaras Hindu University. How do you see the site-specific performances particularly? 

GC: I used to stage in open spaces in my earlier days. I had staged plays on all ghats of Banaras, audience seated on the stairs facing the river. Staging plays on a ghat was my first experiment. When Government borrowed this concept, and started those space for music concerts as Ganga Mahotsav, I entered into proscenium, with my own continuing experiments with space in bookshops (like Indica bookshop), restaurants, open areas of temples and Universities such as in Kashi Vidyapith, where audience including Pt. Kishan Maharaj seated on the chair arbitrarily designed on the inner campus roads, and Gurudham temple (looked ruins at that time). This sense of seeing site-specific performances is also from NS.    

RP: You have witnessed the artistic progress and changes in Varanasi (Banaras, in local language) for more than thirty years. Do you find the city connected with the art of theatre? How do you visualize the future of theatre in Varanasi?    

GC: I can only maintain the fact that Varanasi is known in art only for Music (vocal, instrument and dance) and literature. This has been the true city smile in the 19^th and 20^th century. In this 21^st century, that too is over. We don’t have that quality of artiste of national height or that genre. After Independence, this city attempted in the field of drama through various languages like Bengali, Marathi and Hindi. The silver days were only in the 60s and 70s. Ajitesh Bandopadhyay (Kolkata) came to Banaras to stage Chekhov's Play Seagull in Bengali. Other significant plays staged in Banaras in 70s I remember are, Rakta Karabi by Shambhu Mitra, Kabuliwala by Tagore and Sara Ratri by Badal Sircar. Bharatendu Harishchandra was the last doyen in the Banaras theatre, never acted but wrote and presented several plays without a director on Banarasi bajada (a big boat, often roofed), we find in his own writings. From 1980s onwards, it too diminished. Since the present scenario is a blank void due to (1) lack of creative urge and sensibility, (2) unprofessional past, (3) weakening folk form of drama i.e. Nautanki, and (4) no sense of originality in writing or doing theatre, as play-writing has been damaged by the wrong concept of doing drama based on a published story only, with an emergence of pseudo sense of director eliminating the artistic presence of an actor, I foresee a doom in Varanasi for drama art. But each doom carries the basket of light hidden in its heart. Now the city waits for the actors, untouched by any director. The people of this city want drama in modern way, in the sense of deconstruction. They still have the curiosity in heart to witness an actor in emotions organically, without any quantum feeling of the screen. 

RP: “A play that has never found a theatre is not really a play at all… a dramatist must have actors and audiences in order to realise himself,” said JB Priestley. Indeed, the role of the audience to make a play successful cannot be denied. In this context, do you think that theatre as an art form could not work for a long period of time in the city due to the audiences’ indifference? I have often heard artists saying that there is no urge among common people for theatre in Banaras. What are the factors responsible for this? 

GC: I feel I have already mentioned the factors. Since there is no play, no actor on the stage, so there is no audience in the auditorium. My own experience is disappointing. In this city, a person thinks for a film, a member of any family talks about going even for circus or magic but no member from any family ever asks for drama. If no person thinks to go for drama from his/her side, I feel, it is a waste to think for a drama presentation for an imaginary audience.  

RP: Recently, Banaras has witnessed Theatre Olympics¹ for the first time. How do you feel about this achievement?

GC: Yes this is an achievement in the sense of participating in that event but I don’t see the event itself was an event of creative intention. This was simply another form of misusing the public money at large scale.

RP: What are the folk theatre forms of Banaras? I could identify the famous Ramlila of Ramnagar. 

GC: I have already mentioned above.      

RP: Yes Sir, you have mentioned the weakening of folk form of drama in the city i.e. Nautanki. What was the last Nautanki performance you had witnessed in the city?         

GC: The last Nagari Nautanki was Harichannar Ki Ladai, staged at Sarnath during Buddha Mahotsav (1998), directed by Urmil Kumar Thapliyal from Lucknow. I also witnessed some presentation by Bhaand in Banaras.  

RP: What are the differences between the two: regional theatre and folk or traditional theatre? Where is the thin line between regional and national theatre? Is there any national theatre (based on linguistic division) at all?   

GC: The theatre confines to a region is called Regional theatre e.g. Nautanki. It began when UP was United Province. Ramlila is traditional. Jatra, Bhawai, Mach, Kalbelia, Lavani and others are regarded as folk forms of drama. In Ramlila, the actors who perform Sita, Ram and Laxman are called Murti and never called by the name of their character. The child’s age is between 9 to 14 years who perform as Murti, the main role. He gets retired as an actor by the age of 14 and never performs on stage later.      

RP: The portrayal of women has been changing positively on Indian stage and women from different sections are getting visible. Directors like Amal Allana, Usha Ganguly, Anuradha Kapur, Tripurari Sharma and many others are producing plays that explore the female voices and reconstructs the lost records of female experiences. It is an act of empowerment, isn’t it?         

GC: Yes without any shadow of doubt. But we are able to forget the contributions of those feminine principles that were active in the growth of drama in a particular city. For example, nobody talks about Dr Iravati in Varanasi who suggested a different kind of drama, established a genre over the years. She wrote plays, did stage with female actors only, researched about ancient Indian female actors and lived a life of forty years in local drama scene, but not even a spectator nor an actor nor a drama group bothered to pay tribute or to remember her contribution after her departure. This is the ungratefulness of our time.  

RP: Do you think that University level or institutional initiatives better help to bring theatre in mainstream, especially in small cities?  

GC: Two things can help. One, drama must be included in the course from the very school status like classical music, and two, no actor should be allowed to step in the stage-auditorium unless he accomplishes his/her sadhana of a prescribed time proving/showing his/her innate talent.  

Notes

1. The 8^th Theatre Olympics (11-25 March 2018) was organized in Varanasi for the first time with the support of National School of Drama (NSD), New Delhi. Varanasi was one of the 17 cities, selected for the festival.