BATTLEFIELD play review , English play review

	Direction : Marie-Helene Estienne and Peter Brook Writer : Jean-Claude Carriere Cast : Carole Karemera, Jared McNeill, Ery Nzaramba and Sean O`Callaghan
BATTLEFIELD Play Review

Deepa Punjani	Host-A-Performance \| Schedule

BATTLEFIELD Review

When Peter Brook staged his Mahabharata in 1985 in a production that ran for 9 hours, he made theatre history. The production was raved about but it also generated strong criticism. One of the more scathing critiques levelled against Brook was that the production was reduced to an inter-cultural curiosity without any serious engagement with the epic. Inter-cultural artistic engagements can be tricky.

Now 30 years down the line, Brook and his co-director Marie-Hélène Estienne have returned to the prodigious story of the warring brothers with their play BATTLEFIELD. The play unlike its monumental predecessor runs for a little over an hour. Last week it had its Indian premiere at the NCPA.

The NCPA slotted a number of shows over a full week, no doubt anticipating that the event would generate a lot of buzz and audience footfall. Yet this international theatre event could be one of the theatre's worst shows ever. Abysmal may be one word to describe it.

Narrative-dialogic theatre in a simple staging has great strength as even some of the best Indian theatre productions have shown time and again. Indian theatre in fact is immersed in this tradition. BATTLEFIELD is a classic example echoing this form in which the performers hold the key. It is precisely in this instance that the production thoroughly disappoints first and foremost. None of the actors sensitise us. We are left cold.

The play focuses on the aftermath of the great fratricidal war in which the eldest Pandava Yudhisthira goes through intense internal turmoil of killing his own kith and kin. Dhritrashtra and Krishna console him and tell him that he has fought a just war. Kunti, his mother, tells him about Karna and why he should not be despised.

Beyond Yudhisthira's moral conflict, a greater philosophy is at work. It seeks to go beyond the binaries of good and evil and just and unjust, yet the performance is unable to distill this in any remarkable manner. Essential philosophical truths have a timeless quality and The Mahabharata is a very good example. But these precious truths just pass us by.

BATTLEFIELD also seeks to underline the moral lessons through parables that the dying Bhishma tells Yudhisthira. In performance they crumble into amateurish theatrics. The minimalist staging has no character either and remains token.

Simplicity in the theatre can be a great virtue. It allows for subtlety and refinement. Brook is a veteran at his art. It is a great pity therefore that in this undertaking, the simple does not convey the essence, nor does it make it contemporary in any resonant fashion. The moral quandaries postulated by the Mahabharata remain relevant even in our times but they can also be easily generalised. It is up to the more solid artistic enterprise to peel off the layers of gross generalisations.

Brook and his co-director, I feel sorry to say, have delivered a singularly superficial and an uninspiring production; the only saving grace being the live drumming by Toshi Tsuchitori. Tsuchitori's music restores the limp production and gives it a touch of nobility.

*Deepa Punjani is the Editor of this website.

read / post your comments

Discussion Board

BATTLEFIELD Play Review

Schedule