A PEASANT OF EL SALVADOR Play Review

Theatre can be a great medium to sensitise us to political and social issues that are often interlinked. But what is perhaps most wonderful about the stage is that it has the potential to explore these issues in myriad ways and can effectively transform our understanding and appreciation of them. Q Theatre Productions' (QTP) staging of Peter Gould and Stephen Stearns' award-winning play A PEASANT OF EL SALVADOR is certainly well-meaning in this regard and even attempts to create a parallel with similar situations in our country. Good intentions notwithstanding, the staging largely retains interest because the script is strong and the actors are earnest, especially Meher Acharia-Dar. She along with Suhaas Ahuja and Pramod Pathak form the trio whose narrative is centered on the tragic and humane story of a coffee growing farmer from Central America's smallest but densely populated country El Salvador. The three actor-narrators alternate playing the various characters in the play.



An earnest performance though endearing can be debilitating. It barely leaves scope for nuances. Also, the choice to use all three languages- English, Hindi and Spanish is not without its problems. English is evidently the theatre group's core language but Hindi has been used to accommodate Pramod Pathak's comfort with the language (he is clearly more comfortable speaking in Hindi than in English) as well as to echo the El Salvadoran peasant crisis of the seventies in our own rural backyard. It's tempting to bring the ramifications of the El Salvadoran peasant crisis home but India is not El Salvador. Such broad-sweeping and token comparisons maybe good to evoke our sympathy but have no legitimacy.

Pramod Pathak, a good and very capable actor otherwise, is hence not quite able to develop his characters as he has to concentrate on getting his bits in English right. As for the sparing use of Spanish (no doubt to contexualise the setting of the play), it is poorly used, given that none of the three actors can speak the language well. All three actors have certain strengths and these they use to their best ability. Meher Acharia-Das scores on her diction, Suhaas Ahuja, among the three, is the most assured and he has the distinct ability to internalise the pace in the performance; hence he is not hurried and is able to heighten the effect of the lines he speaks. Pramod Pathak compared to the two is a veteran. The three eventually ease into a more convincing performance as they steer past the early temptation of keeping time with the pace so as to not lose the attention of the audience. A narrative style is always tricky as it is not easy to find a well-timed pace that is neither too fast, nor too slow.

Director Quasar Thakore Padamsee gives us some touching moments such as when the poor farmer realizes that he has to travel far to earn his living as his ancestral patch of farmland is no longer yielding him the coffee beans. In a minimalist staging, one's got to be creative and clever. The yellow crates for example serve perfectly to depict the prison internment of the peasant's son and are alternatively used to show the hard, unimaginative labour that the poor farmers have to resort to subsist themselves.

The script has all the good ingredients of a captivating story, which in this case, is also critical of the politics that creates bad economics and in countries like El Salvador, oppression of the poor by the stronger tyrannical forces within and outside the country. The enemy here is the familiar American big corporation for whom El Salvador is not a country but a profit-making enterprise. There is no justifying corporate wrongdoing and America's zealous attempts to bring about democratic reforms in authoritarian states have only done more harm than good. Yet countries such as El Salvador and other South American giants such as Venezuela suffer from grave internal problems and inconsistencies of their own. It was El Salvador's oligarchy (spoken about in the play) that first led to the ruin of peasants like our protagonist. Today, the military and gureilla styled dictatorships in these countries have only augmented the problems of their citizens and have not shied from being brutal either. These are difficult ponderings and in the face of tragedy it is easy to be biased, given that America is almost every country's favourite scapegoat.

Nevertheless the play makes a humane case and it does it well. There is humour and pathos in equal measure. We can visualize the tiny country whose name ironically translates into English as The Republic of the Saviour. The play serves to remind us of the systematic oppression and brutality of the more powerful and ends with Archbishop Oscar Romero's death. On March 24 1980, Romero was murdered for speaking up for the repression of the farmers in El Salvador and for fighting for land reform. His funeral became a brutal site as thousands of mourners were indiscriminately shot at. Piles of shoes were left behind by those who tried to save their lives. The last scene in QTP's production gives us a fleeting visual of the sheer scale of the tragedy. For so much sadness, the beauty of the play lies in the indefatigable hope that guides the peasant of El Salvador to the very end.

*Deepa Punjani is the Editor of this website.

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