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Ibsen has wielded a significant influence on theatre practitioners in India though we do not have a rounded view of how his work has been interpreted in Indian theatre practice or of the actual number of his plays staged in the country, whether in the original, in translation or in adaptation. This 'absence' (more likely lack of cohesive data) was one of the recurring topics discussed in the conference. We only seem to have scattered examples from different regions in the country, some more known than others. However there is no doubt that Ibsen's theatre and worldview permeated the consciousness of the modern Indian stage.
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PEER GYNT in Chindu-Bhagwatam style (directed by Aruna Bhikshu) |
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Playwright-director Ramu Ramanathan's notes on Ibsen's presence in India are illuminating. In Maharashtra, he talks of a group called 'Natya Manwantar' ('Natya', meaning theatre, and 'Manwantar' meaning change of age/time). The group, which was established in 1927-28, had new, revolutionary ideas. They were inspired by Ibsen and the Trotskyite theories of MN Roy. Wanting to change the face of Marathi theatre, they sought out Keshavrao Date, a brilliant actor-director of the time. Natya Manwantar had two scripts. One was Ibsen's A DOLL'S HOUSE and the other a French farce. Date felt that A DOLL'S HOUSE would be 'alien' to the Marathi theatre-goer and felt that though the play is 'not bad', it is 'too bold and forward'. Ibsen was skipped in favour of Natya Manwantar's first play ANDYALYANCHI SHALA (THE SCHOOL OF THE BLIND; 1933), also regarded as the first 'experimental' play in Maharashtra. There's a joke about this - if the group had staged A DOLL'S HOUSE, Marathi theatre would have had an auspicious beginning.
Marathi theatre, which was hesitant in accepting Ibsen, continued nevertheless to be enamoured of him. Ramu Ramanathan adds that some of the best playwrights in Marathi theatre- Acharya Atre, Mama Warerkar, Mo Ga Rangnekar were hugely influenced by Ibsen. Rangnekar's well-known play KULAVADHU was heavily inspired by Nora. The play's heroine was called Bimba and she was played by Jyotsna Bhole. Ibsen was also translated into Marathi- THE DOLL's HOUSE and GHOSTS in 1941; ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE in 1960; BRAND AND WILD DUCK in 1963 and VIKING OF HEGELAND around the same time.
Ebrahim Alkazi, the National School of Drama's (NSD) premier man was also greatly influenced by Ibsen. Narrating the more familiar history of Ibsen in Kolkata vis-a-vis groups like Nandikar, theatre veterans such as Shyamanand Jalal and Shombu Mitra and the famous filmmaker Satyajit Ray who also adapted Ibsen's ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE ('Ghanashatru'; 1989), Ramu Ramanathan quoted early examples such as the Malyali playwright Krishna Pillai who too was very influenced by Ibsen and adapted A DOLL'S HOUSE (BHAGNABHAVANAM). The play was staged by the Pratibha Arts Club in Kerala as part of the reformist movement in 1942.
In his paper at the Hyderabad conference, Professor MV Narayanan stressed on Ibsen's significance in the context of theatre in Kerala. While noting the significant role that Ibsen played in 20th century Malayalam theatre, Professor MV Narayanan also spoke of the 'uni-dimensional' approach adopted by theatre makers in Kerala towards the plays. It was Ibsen's realism and the 'problem' and the 'domestic' aspect of some of his plays that found resonance with Kerala's theatre people.
The crucial point highlighted by Professor MV Narayanan is quite the template through which one can perhaps view most of the Ibsen productions done in India.
PEER GYNT falls outside this template.
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A Koodiyattam version of PEER GYNT (directed by Abhilash Pillai) |
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With the Ibsen festivals in India, courtesy the Royal Norwegian Embassy, there has been deliberate focus on mounting Ibsen plays and as a result, rarely performed texts like PEER GYNT (Deepan Sivaraman's production in 2010 and Ila Arun's adaptation PIR GHANI in 2014 are among the recent productions of the play) or the more autobiographical WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN (Sankar Venkateswaran; 2012) along with a host of Ibsen's lesser performed plays have been staged in the last few years.
The means of production can have a direct correlation with what is ultimately produced. Whenever plays are commissioned for festivals as was also the case for the conference at Hyderabad, the enterprise is almost always deliberate and is emphasised by the nature of the producing entity- in this case the festival sponsor/s and organiser/s. As a result the end product may have had to negotiate territory that comes with its set of challenges- conceptual as well as logistical.
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