Ganakrishti’s Taar Pratikshaye and Godot: Waiting for ‘Nothingness’

 

Ganakrishti’s Taar Pratikshaye and Godot: Waiting for ‘Nothingness’

When the present trend in theatre production is to present a visually rich stage show, it is quite amazing to find Ganakrishti presenting a play bereft of any visual splendour and having little box-office value, or perhaps it would be prudent to say, a play with no entertainment value at all. On the occasion of their 42^nd anniversary, Ganakrishti presented a very well-done adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot as Taar Pratikshaye. One wonders why in these difficult times when the theatre world has taken the worst battering, a group would dare to produce a play that is considered as one of the most difficult plays in the absurd genre.  

The answer to my perplexity lies there-in. The time we are going through is perhaps one of the worst since man’s history. Yes, Covid is a cause, and may have turned out to be the main cause since the beginning of this year. But the world, especially a few big nations like ours, has been enduring a rightist, and a repressive and a fascist-like political and economic crisis since quite a number of years. And conditions have depreciated markedly to a point of crackdown where the quality of life has reached an ebb, and the only parameter of living out a life for the common man has become the degree of ‘depression’ one experiences. think of Gogo and Didi. And thus, the resultant situation is like living with ‘nothingness’. And that is what Taar Pratikshaye tries to reiterate. And that is where Ganakrishti walks the extra mile.

Before going into the discussion on the relevance of the play in today’s situation, let us review Ganakrishti’s staging of the play. The production is worth remembering for a number of reasons, four to be precise. Firstly, Amitava Dutta’s reworking of the English script of Beckett into the Bengali lingo overcomes the great challenge of transcreating the nonsensical dialogues. The Anglican and Biblical references, of course, did pose a dilemma for Dutta. The second reason is his mounting of the play, that surely warrants accolades. He was particularly very careful in keeping the audiences’ attention in what can be called the ‘non-happenings’ on the stage in conjunction to creating the pestilent monotony and repetitiveness that is characteristic of absurdism. Then thirdly, the actors – Swarnendu Sen as Agaa (Gogo), Sukanta Shil as Bagaa (Didi), Dipak Das as Podu (Pozzo) and, of course, Raju Das as Lakka (Lucky) who astounded the viewers with the excellently rendered long tirade that was also excellently penned by Dutta – all showed astonishing ingenuity in portraying the characters. Lastly, a special word of applause is due to Gautam Ghosh for his very subtle yet very profound background score that could bring out the sense of uncertainty and that of voidness that define the play. 

But what relevance has this play in today’s situation? We can say, the play teaches us to wait for ‘nothing’. And that is the truth of existential absurdism which seems to be the secret of living a purposeful life in this world ruled by ‘dangerous minds’, to borrow a phrase from the title of a book by Roger Williams and Robin Munro.

As Rebecca Camilleri in her 2015 dissertation paper entitled ‘Waiting for Nothing: The experience of the live event in Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot and Marina Abramovic’s performance The Artist is Present’, calls the play a philosophical dialect, we find that Beckett’s minimal use of objects (he uses just a tree on the stage) and the use of space and time have least rationality. They ‘create a sense of waiting which seeks to unite performer and spectator in a sensory experience’. But this experience is dependent on the interpretative stance of the spectator, according to Camilleri.

We find Agaa (Gogo) and Bagaa (Didi) failing to find a meaningful relationship with their surrounding and also between themselves. They are constantly conversing but they communicate nothing. The viewers join them to experience their waiting – waiting for someone or for that matter, waiting for something. Two more characters Podu (Pozzo) and Lakka (Lucky) are introduced to compound the contemplation process. But the question that the four characters, as well as the viewers seek is ‘who is Godot?’

Godot is not a character and the name signifies nothing. Godot is a concept that makes us question the meaning of our existence. The non-existent concept is a revelation of the absurdity of the time and the prevailing situation. It, however, keeps us – the Agaas (Gogos) and the Bagaas (Didis) on tenterhooks, waiting for the WORSE to come. Of course, one can argue and say, be optimistic and expect BETTER to come and not the WORSE. But judging from the present situation that is represented by the two impoverished, both economically and intellectually, characters of Agaa (Gogo) and Bagaa (Didi), and the way Godot keeps them waiting eternally, one can never expect anything better than the WORSE to come. And to add to this is the character of Podu (Pozzo) who represent the exploiting class and that of his lackey Lakka (Lucky) who represent the oppressed, a true representation of today’s society is complete.

Thus, Ganakrishti with their latest production Taar Pratikshaye has done a tremendous job of waking us up from the stupor and make us ready to face the WORSE and expect NOTHING. And that would keep us moving on to achieve the BETTER. Remember Gogo and Didi at the end, did not make their exits in spite of deciding to leave.

‘Father’ in Bergman’s films and Strindberg’s ‘The Father’: a cursory survey

‘Father’ in Bergman’s films and Strindberg’s ‘The Father’: a cursory survey

Ingmar Bergman is said to have been accompanied by August Strindberg throughout his theatre career. Strindberg had also impressed, partly, upon Bergman’s philosophical outlook especially in his post-Inferno crisis period. His different films have many indications of this fact and amongst these is his handling of the character of the Father, which have recurred in his films in different overtones. It is a fact that his personal life did have a great implication in his approach to this character. And thus, some of his important films get an autobiographical touch. His own father was the Lutheran chaplain to the Swedish royal family, and he had forced the little Bergman into religion. We find that, he relates this fact through the pastor in his Winter Light who tells his mistress how he was forced by his father to become a preacher. Bergman, from his relations with different wives and mistresses, had fathered eight children, including a daughter who came to know about him being her father twenty-two years after she was born. We find the familial relationships, especially of the father with his offspring are the pivotal points in a number of his more significant films.  

On the other hand, Strindberg, whose autobiographical novel is named The Son of a Servant was a son of a serving-maid who followed Pietism, which is a part of Lutheranism. This had made him religious minded from his early childhood. But his childhood had witnessed religious fanaticism, too, apart from poverty and ‘emotional insecurity’. One wonders how similar had been the childhood upbringings of both the guru and the shishya. Though Strindberg’s recurrent theme had been to probe the husband and wife relationship, his portrayal of the father as a familial character in his The Father, finds an exceptional treatment. He portrays a couple who, in spite of a congenial relationship otherwise, constantly disagrees on their daughter’s future. The mother wants her to be home-educated and thus get to know the ideal Christian values. This is opposed by the father who is a freethinker and an intellectual. He has no qualms of his daughter exposed to atheism or, for that matter, any other faith. The wife in a desperate attempt to stop this patriarchal system, unscrupulously plan to drive her husband mad. She insinuates that he is not the girl’s father. A very intense psychological battle is designed by the playwright making the play a combination of psychology and Naturalism.

Incidentally, it is worth mentioning that, a very well adaptation of this play by Strindberg was staged by Ushneek, last year. Ishita Mukherjee, the director and playwright of the play entitled Babai, added a typical Bengali texture to the familial set-up, in addition to the distribution of space on the stage for the husband, wife and their daughter to depict their individual space in the conflict. Debshankar Haldar portraying the father, is an actor who knows the art of dissecting out a character to reveal its soul to the audience.   

Returning back to our discourse, it should be mentioned that Bergman was himself a bit too sensitive about the father’s portrayal on the stage. He writes to the Swedish novelist Axel Lundegard, who was asked to translate The Father into Danish, ‘… I suggest that the Captain’s role be given to an actor with an otherwise vigorous temperament who meets his fate in fairly good spirits, with the self-ironic, slightly skeptical tone of a man of the world. He is aware of his superiority but dies wrapping himself in those spider webs he cannot tear to pieces because of the law of nature.’ In a correspondence with the theatre director Harold Molander, Strindberg writes, ‘The plot is no crazier than Iago’s soul murder of Othello, and the question of paternity is here treated only a little more seriously than in The Maternity Room (the reference of which I am yet to come across, though the idea is well established), where it is depicted with the usual classical crudity.’    

The Father, elaborates on the ‘problem play’ tenets of Ibsen, especially on the moral dilemmas of the characters, but it moves further from Ibsen’s Naturalism to a ‘greater Naturalism’. This also is evident in the treatment of the central characters of Bergman’s Trilogy of Faith films. Strindberg believed that in The Father he had found a new style of writing which he termed ‘artistic-psychological’. We can also might term Bergman’s cinema-making ‘artistic-psychological’ as well. Strindberg used heavy dose of emotional elements in his building up of the events, which, in turn, shaped the characters and gave their specific tone and texture, and that is even reflected in their reciprocal dialogues. This is equally evident in Bergman’s play of the plots and the characters.

The psychological elements in Bergman’s films is the mainstay of his works. The themes that Bergman chose were certainly not very pleasant for joy-reading. They were sordid and some of them were once taboo to even mention in societal gatherings. The themes in Bergman’s films ranged from love and its negation, faith and the loss of it, marital relations that questions the very institution of marriage, inter-familial relationships, incest relationship, emotional isolations, or the irrationality of moral choice, or pointing at the absurdity of existence, questioning the father figure which also included, of course, beliefs, disbeliefs and doubts about God, and so on.   

Bergman had defined the three films of his Trilogy of Faith as films dealing with ‘reduction’. He used this term metaphysically to address the fundamental nature of reality. By this term he denoted a total replacement of the concept of God. The concept of the real presence of God (and the father) is reduced gradually in the three films. According to him, in Through a Glass Darkly certainty is achieved, that is, the schizophrenic daughter of the escapist non-communicative father has no doubts that God appears as a monstrous spider and the father has no communication with his children. In Winter Light certainty is exposed, that is the pastor himself expresses his doubts about God. In The Silence, by which he meant God’s silence, it is the negative impression, where a mother and an aunt are present while there is no father.

It is interesting to note that, in the film The Sacrifice by Andrei Tarkovsky the central character called Alexander bargains with God. Incidentally, Tarkovsky was a follower of Bergman (and also of Akira Kurosawa), and the making of the film is so very Bergman-like (with the Kurosawa-like slow camera movements).

As I had mentioned in my earlier blog that mysticism and different metaphors used by the playwright have found their places in Bergman’s films. The power of observing supernatural phenomena and clairvoyance, are abundant in his films.

Bergman’s handling of God, religion, faith etc., was a natural outcome of his personal growing up. On the other hand, we find Strindberg writing to Georg Brandes, the Danish literary critic who had appreciated The Father, ‘I regard Christianity as a regression, [-] because it is contrary to our evolution, which seeks to protect the strong against the weak, and the current pressure from women seems to me a symptom of the regression of the race and a consequence of Christianity.’      

But twenty years later in 1908 it is strange to find Strindberg writing to Uno Stadius, a supporter of temperance, ‘I am a Christian and am convinced that people should not be raised with theatre and paintings but with work and the fear of God. Instead of the surrogate of art, they possess the original, God’s wonderful natural world! [-]’

I believe here in comes the element of mysticism and dreams.  And that leads us from the Father or the God to the world of dreams and fantasies.

Bergman’s handling of the dreams is akin to those of Strindberg’s. Strindberg wrote to Axel Lundegard, ‘It is as if I’m walking in my sleep; as if my life and writing have gotten all jumbled up. I don’t know if The Father is fiction or if my life has been, but I feel as if [-] this at some moment soon will dawn upon me, and then I shall collapse either into madness and remorse or suicide. Through much writing my life has become a shadow life. I no longer feel as if I am walking the earth but floating weightless in an atmosphere not of air but darkness. If light enters into darkness, I shall collapse and be crushed!

‘The strange thing is that in an often-recurring nocturnal dream I feel I am flying weightless which I find quite natural, as though all notions of right and wrong, true and false, have dissolved and everything that happens, however strange, appears just as it should. [-]’ 

The dreams in Bergman’s films, so to say, are his revisits into his inner self. But a very different treatment is seen in Wild Strawberries, where the dream (nightmare) sequence is a masterpiece of surrealism in cinema. Interestingly, Tarkovsky’s films, too, have such dreams of floating weightless. 

Bergman had once said that he would want to keep the dreams in his mind and later make a film on it. He frequently mixed the elements of his unconscious with art – dreams and cinema. Innumerable images are encountered in his films which are dream-like. Existential fears of sexual anxieties are explicitly portrayed. He cited Strindberg’s A Dream Play as his inspiration. But The Ghost Sonata which Strindberg wrote in 1907 has had a particular fascination for Bergman who produced this chamber play four times in his entire theatre career – 1941, 1954, 1973 and 2000. The questions of paternity, betrayal, morality, spirituality are put up in this early modernist drama. Seeing the film made by Bergman himself on the latest version of his stage production is an exceptional experience. Strindberg had defined the play as ‘a piece of fantasy’. This version is seen as a ‘depressing existentialist Strindberg compendium; a Judgement Day drama.’ Bergman had said that, he had stressed the fact that, ‘the only thing that can give man any kind of salvation – a secular one – is the grace and compassion which come out of himself’. And that is the summit where Bergman meets his ‘Father’ Strindberg.

SOUMITRA CHATTERJEE : A Character Analyst par excellence

 

SOUMITRA CHATTERJEE :

A Character Analyst par excellence

                              

As soon as the name of Soumitra Chatterjee is mentioned the image that appears in one’s mind is that of a smashingly handsome matinee idol of the big screen who had collaborated with Satyajit Ray in the latter’s 14 films. But as a passionate enthusiast of the art of acting, Soumitra Chatterjee appears in two avatars – one that of stage actor Soumitra and the other that of the film actor Soumitra. I have purposefully mentioned stage actor Soumitra ahead of the silver screen actor Soumitra. I believe, and certainly I do, that, stage actor Soumitra was far ahead of the silver screen actor Soumitra. For professional reasons, of course, he did prioritise his career in films. The medium of cinema has, of course, given him recognition, international fame, and a huge following at home. I consider seeing him act on the stage even once was a far enriching experience than seeing a number of his films. And this includes his films that he did for Satyajit Ray. I believe that, the viewer never gets to see the complete actor in him in the films he acted in, which perhaps number more than 200 including the Ray-ones, than he had the privilege to discover in a work of his on the stage.

Let me elucidate this point that I am trying to establish with an example. In 2012, Soumitra had staged a play Chhariganga (ref. theatrebengal.blogspot.com 26.4.2012) where he played the role of a scientist-philosopher. I had done a review article on this production for Desh. It was in the form of a letter that I had addressed to the thespian. I wrote that after seeing him act in numerous films, I, as an ardent theatre-lover, had felt that at the root of his artistic soul there was an out-and-out stage actor. I wrote that, for decades he had been contributing to the Bengali stage with a treasure trove of priceless gems of acting, theatre-making, and of course, play-writing, the values of which we are yet to be discerned, appreciated and admired. I confessed that we had failed to reckon with his total activities in the theatre world. And I added that, it is unfortunate that, we still go to the theatre to see ‘Soumitra’ and not his work.

Then, I recalled in my article that, way back in 1981, in a conversation with me, he had said that, acting is an affair of a couple of hours and an actor – a real good one – is ready, and is qualified to ‘reasonably’ interpret the human character of the play, or for that matter, the story. Then he had said that, he studies the character he would be portraying and deeply ponders on it. And then, he had remarked that, like the bistaar in a khayal rendition he gradually unfolds the character on the stage. This was a clear indication, I observed in my writing, that, at the central point of his thinking process there resides a stage-actor.

After discussing all other aspects of that particular production, I had written that, I had restrained from commenting on his performance – his rendition of dialogues, his intonations, his movements on the stage, his activities with his hands, his various looks, glances and gazes. They were all so very different from what we are used to see on the stage, usually. So, I admitted that, I was at a loss to describe or comment on his performance. I had then tried to explain with the instance that he had given of the presentation of khayal. I wrote that, in the bistaar of the aalap part of the rendition, the singer introduces the various notes of the raga to the listeners. The singer, I wrote, in his or her very own way establishes the notes and ventures into the virgin areas, and in that journey his or her fellow travellers are those listeners present at that very point of time. That is exactly, I pointed out, how he develops the character on the stage, as like the improvisations of the singer. With all his perceptions, cognitions and reasonings he turns the character into a person of flesh and blood. And the witnesses to such an act of magical transformation are not only the viewers on that particular day, but also the co-actors present on the stage with him.

When Soumitra used to construct those enchanted moments with his co-actors, the spectators could perceive the deep sense of involvement he had in the various activities of his fellow actors, too. And this resulted in an unbelievable truth being born in front of the spectators. This spontaneity is never possible in a film. As he had acting in his veins – in his organic make-up – he, may perhaps, did get to give this extra bit in a composite shot on the studio floor. But the viewers of his films seldom could observe such glimpses of his expressions either in the follow-through of his own deliveries or those of his co-actors. This is because in the making process of a film it is customary that, the director would add reaction shots to it and complete the particular sequence.

We see such instances in Ray films, too. Let us take an instance from Soumitra’s first film, Apur Sansar. There is a sequence when Apu rushes down the stairs to fetch a maid for Aparna, and the latter calls him back. Apu quite dejected on his financial incompetence to provide a helping hand for his newly wed, walks back into the room and sits on the bed, flinging the flute, crossing his legs and looking the other side. His reaction continuity is captured by Ray with a reaction close up of Aparna’s cute yet sly smile and Apu’s annoyed expression. But the viewers miss the reaction of Soumitra’s Apu, a few frames of which remain at the cutting point of the first part. If this particular sequence were to have been presented on the stage, the spectator would have had the experience of perceiving the totality of the reaction of the actor Soumitra. It is interesting to note, though coincidental, that the camera angle of the shot is akin to the spatial relation of the stage and the spectator.

But then how has he been so successful as a screen actor? Apart from his attractive looks, his radiance, his aura (which, by the way, had once been the prerequisites for an actor to upgrade oneself to the image of a matinee idol), he applied the same process of interpreting a character and working it out, even for the segmental shots, as he would for the stage with the help of his own intellectual perception. His fathomless talent, perhaps, helped him to do so, on the shooting floor, and that too, in a very short time. And therein lies the secret of a complete stage actor. The deeply imprinted philosophy of stage acting helped him to apply that lesson very successfully to screen acting, keeping all the conditions of the film medium unaltered. He made use of the camera and its lenses with such brilliance that one wonders why did he not make a film of his own.

It is often said that acting or rather the expressions should remain a bit subdued in films as because the camera amplifies them on the big screen. Does it imply that in order to make the last row see and hear what is being done on the stage, stage acting has to be high strung? If one had seen Soumitra on the stage one would perceive how restrained, and how natural he was in his expressions. In this respect, in one of his articles on Sisirkumar Bhaduri he gave the example of the latter’s rendition of Jibananda in the play Soroshi. Soumitra wrote that, Bhaduri never showed any heroic outbursts, that was very common even in the present days. Bhaduri’s acting, according to Soumitra, was so reclusive and suggestive, that it was rare to witness even in the modern times. We know that Bhaduri’s genre was successfully carried forward by his ardent follower Soumitra. It would be prudent to give another example to justify my above statement. Those who have had the privilege in seeing Soumitra’s acting as an over-drunk in Nilkantha knows what I am hinting at. One is astounded to find Soumitra’s analysis of Sisirkumar’s acting as Jogesh in comparison to that of Nimchand, both being a drunkard’s part. It becomes obvious why Soumitra was so great as a stage actor.

He has done numerous characters in his whole life and for almost all of them he had tried to ‘reasonably’ interpret them with his own logic and by his own reasoning. He certainly enjoyed a greater freedom in working out the character on the stage than he was in the cinema for obvious reasons. In a different context he had told a film-fan of his that the actor was ‘helpless’ in regard to cinema acting which according to him was a ‘dependant art’. As because the actor reaches the viewer via the screenplay writer and the director and the cameraman and the editor, the viewer can never get him in his completeness. But on the stage the actor, especially a cerebral one, infuses the character he is playing with whatever is needed, judging all the reasons and logic, and present the character in flesh and blood. He gets the chance to instantly improvise in front of the spectators and, thereby, establishes a direct communication with them.

And if the cerebral actor happens to be a poet, an erudite scholar, and a man of letters, then these instantaneous creativeness on the stage becomes individual pieces of haiku. For one who has had the fortune to watch Soumitra perform on stage, these sparkling moments remain indelible in their memories. But have we had the chance to experience such scintillating moments in films? In cinema his brilliance is in his total characterisation of the person he has been assigned to portray. Or, in the other way round, it can be said that, it depends on how efficiently the director employs his brilliance on the screen. Naturally, here the reference of Satyajit Ray creeps in.

Writing about Uttam Kumar in an article in Sunday just after the latter’s death in 1980, Ray gave his initial impression about the heart-throb of the Bengali film-goers like this, ‘Uttam had good looks, a certain presence, an ease of manner, and no trace of the theatre in his performance’. His impressions of working with him was very striking. He noted, ‘I must say working with Uttam turned out to be one of the most pleasant experiences of my film-making career. I found out early on that he belonged to the breed of instinctive actors. I have worked with the other kind too, the cerebral one, the one that likes to take a part to pieces and probe into background, motivations, etc., in order to ‘get beneath the skin of the character’. But the fact is, that there is no guarantee that a cerebral actor will make a more substantial contribution than an instinctive one. I hardly recall any discussion with Uttam on a serious, analytical level on the character he was playing. And yet he constantly surprised and delighted me with the unexpected little details of action and behaviour which came from him and not from me, which were always in character and enhanced the scene. They were so spontaneous that it seemed he produced these out of his sleeve. If there was any cognition involved, he never spoke about it.’ He finished off his writing like this, ‘…Uttam’s work shows rare virtues of grace, spontaneity and confidence. Such combination is not easy to come by, and it is hard to see anyone taking his place in the cinema of West Bengal in the near future.’

Ray’s study of Uttam and his work needs circumspection. He says Uttam had ‘no trace of the theatre in his performance’. Uttam, in fact, did not have any theatre background. One who is familiar with Uttam’s earlier films would remember that, apart from his attractive smile and good-looks there was a particular stiffness in his movements and expressions, that smirked of a naïve actor. Of course, he matured with time. Ray termed him as an ‘instinctive actor’ who would present the character superficially and without getting ‘beneath the skin of the character’, and who would add ‘unexpected little details of action and behaviour’. The wetting of the fountain pen nib by dipping it in the glass of water to sign an autograph, (Nayak) was one such improvisation that even warranted Ray’s praise. But what about Soumitra, who in a span of thirty-two years had been Ray’s lead role in fourteen of his feature films? Didn’t he have the ‘rare virtues of grace, spontaneity and confidence’? Then why did Ray never mention Soumitra’s name in any of his articles in the English language that he wrote for the English-speaking world? Why did he keep mum, when he had mentioned names of Chunibala (‘Pather Panchali could never be made as Chunibala is no longer there.’), Kanu Banerjee, Karuna Banerjee, Chhabi Biswas (‘our greatest actor’), Tulsi Chakraborty, and even Shabana Azmi (‘one of our finest dramatic actresses’), or, for that matter, Suhasini Mulay and Dhritiman Chatterjee, whom he had placed in the ‘star’ creed. But Soumitra Chatterjee, incredibly though, remains absent in his discussions.

We do get an indirect reference in these words – ‘I have worked with the other kind too, the cerebral one, the one that likes to take a part to pieces and probe into background, motivations, etc., in order to ‘get beneath the skin of the character’. Surprisingly, he does not give extra credit to this cerebral actor. He says, ‘there is no guarantee that a cerebral actor will make a more substantial contribution than an instinctive one’.

Ray was comfortable, it seems, with those actors who were not been bitten by the theatre bug, that is, those who had no theatre training, and were less, or rather, not analytical in their handling of the characters. He could transform his meticulously written, programmed and chalked out screenplays into screen-images with these types of actors, who would carry out to the details, what he wanted. Did he give Soumitra that freedom to express his spontaneity, his confidence to interpret in his own way? This was quite obvious in his playing of Sandip in Ghare-Baire.

In a conversation with yours truly, Soumitra had once said that, he had failed to understand the character of Udayan Pandit (Hirak Rajar Deshe dir. Satyajit Ray). Was he a detective? Was he a terrorist? Was he a spy? Was he an athlete? Or, was he a patriotic intellectual? But on the other hand, he was very ambitious about the role of Khidda (Kony dir. Saroj Dey), which he thought he could do justice to. So, as an actor he had been looking for a space where he could keep himself in the shadow and bring the character in front of the footlights and introduce the soul of the character to the spectator.

For the method-acting process of Stanislavsky’s school of stage-acting, where the actor has to transform himself into the ‘fictional first person’ (The neuroscience of Romeo and Juliet: an fMRI study of acting., Steven Brown, et al. Royal Society Open Science, 2019), the actor has to probe into the emotional truth of the character. When in Homapakhi one becomes a witness to such an inquiry by a manic-depressive university professor, one discovers Soumitra Chatterjee as an analyst par excellence.                             

      

A theatre viewer’s Bergman films: The Silence of God Trilogy: a case study

 

A theatre viewer’s Bergman films:

The Silence of God Trilogy: a case study

 

A recent article of Bratya Basu published in Boier Desh (July-September 2020) on Ingmar Bergman and his autobiography The Magic Lantern, compelled me to revisit the world of perhaps the foremost auteur of the medium of cinema and at the same time, a compulsive theatre-maker. I went on devouring nine of his cinemas almost in an incessant regimen. Basu, in discussing the artistic journey of Bergman explored the Swede’s background of theatre, and had commented that this fact had never been discussed by any theatre analyst, critic or scholar of the Bengali theatre ever. This particular insinuation brought to my mind a reference the legendary thespian of the Bengali stage Shombhu Mitra had mentioned in a class that I had the opportunity to attend to, in Santiniketan in the late 70’s. He was giving us a lesson on how to see a theatre performance, and went on giving examples from world cinema. And in doing so he mentioned Ingmar Bergman amongst others. But what intrigued us was while he mentioned Bergman, he pointed out that the Swede had had an enormous experience of stage production that had vastly influenced his making of his signature films, and that Bergman was an ardent admirer of Henrik Ibsen and, of course, August Strindberg. For the record, it would be worth mentioning that Mitra had also discussed the works of John Ford, Charles Chaplin, Sergei Eisenstein, Vittorio De Sica, Akira Kurosawa, Orson Wells, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and from where one could perceive the ideas of framing, lighting, movement and such other things that make-up a ‘scene’.

But as there was no YouTube facility then, I had to wait for film-clubs, and there were many such, to arrange for such films in Sunday morning shows. I did see a few films of a number of these giants. Mitra had pointed out that Kurosawa had imbibed the traditional form of Noh in his films, particularly in films like The Throne of Blood, which I had the opportunity of seeing at the FITI, Pune, shortly afterwards.

However, the present exercise is a direct fallout of reading Basu’s article. As a theatre enthusiast and a cinema lover I felt it a sense of compulsion to dissertate the theatrical elements in the films of Bergman, though a number of scholars have written, published and spoken on this subject since the last couple of decades. This present dissertation is a very personal exercise for me to hone my senses regarding the wonder world of Bergman and that of theatre, as well.

Apart from the very obvious fundamentals of theatre like the acting forms, costumes, make up, sets, props, etc., other essentials like the narrative form, distributions and building up of dialogue scenes, background score and ambient sounds, and of course, the mise en scene that define the work and its creator’s artistic bend of mind, are shaped out depending on the very basic nature of the medium, that is, whether it is the medium of cinema or it is the medium of theatre. And that is where a theatre-maker’s stage job differs from a film-maker’s cinematic design.

But what happens if someone who happens to be world’s one of the most productive stage directors plunges into the world of cinema to create a new language? Ingmar Bergman happens.

Johannes Riis in his article ‘Notes on Ingmar Bergman’s Stylistic Development and Technique for Staging Dialogue’, had pointed out that two influences had developed Bergman as a complete author of films: his vast works in theatre and the theories of the Finnish psychologist and philosopher Eino Kaila. We would be concentrating on the first influence, that is, the influence of theatre on his films. As Jan Holmberg, the CEO of Ingmar Bergman Foundation had said that Bergman regarded theatre as the faithful wife and cinema as the exciting mistress – and that he would always return to the wife. It would have been prudent to discuss his theatrical ventures in short, but that, too, would also be a pretty lengthy affair.

For our case study we have selected the three films that he had initially called a Trilogy but later denied, and which he had made one after the other at the peak of his creativity. He had said, ‘These three films deal with reduction. Through a Glass Darkly – conquered certainty. Winter Light – penetrated certainty. The Silence – God’s silence – the negative imprint. Therefore, they constitute a trilogy.

Watching these films is a cinematic experience that has no parallel in the film world. And these films also have intensive theatrical attributes that a student of theatre would find greatly enriching.   

Considered as twentieth century’s one of the most prolific directors of the stage, having made 171 productions, including radio ones, Bergman, over a span of six decades, made 59 films that included television films and non-fiction documentals as well. So, it is naturally a challenge for anybody to discern out the evolutionary vivacity of his themes and his craft. The Ingmar Bergman Foundation has roughly chalked out five periods of his cinematic activities with the principal thematic elements in each. They are (1) 1944-1953: Working class and Young lovers, (2) 1952-1955: Marriage and Woman, (3) 1956-1964: Metaphysics and Man, (4) 1966-1981: The role of   and the artist and Woman, and (5) 1982-2003: Epilogue and Autobiography. The third period (1956-1964: Metaphysics and Man) is that span of his career when he made his most significant and his most defining films like, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and his ‘silence of God trilogy’ Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence.

This was the period when he was equally busy with his theatre productions. During this eight-year period, he had produced fourteen stage productions variously in Malmo City Theatre, Royal Swedish Opera popularly called Dramaten, eleven radio theatres and six television theatres. Thus, both the cinema-maker as well as the theatre-maker in him were equally active, and his theatre works naturally had a profound effect on the making of his films of this period, especially the trilogy, where one finds exceptional instances of chamber films, in the mould of the chamber plays of August Strindberg, and making them extremely personal and challenging for the viewers.   

The first of the three is Through a Glass Darkly was made in 1961. It is a film about Karin, a psychologically fragile woman (Harriet Andersson) who recuperates from a nervous breakdown while vacationing with her family on a remote island. Her father (Gunnar Bjonstrand) has been exploiting her illness for material for his literary pursuits. Her doctor husband (Max von Sydow) fails in his efforts to treat her. Her brother (Lars Passgard) is engrossed in his quest for sexual fulfilment. She further descends into isolation and even indulges in incestuous sexual activity with her brother. The entire family goes into introspection about the deep alienation amongst themselves. and questions the existence of God, while Karin meets God as a monstrous spider coming out of the attic.

Bergman built up the film in the typical structure of a three-act play. Following the chamber plays of Strindberg he kept the number of performers to the minimum; four players only play out the inner struggle of the human being to come in terms with the intangible presence of God and the enigma of love. 

Bergman’s next venture Winter Light (1963) is an exploration of the worth of a meaningless existence and a personal endorsement to face a world that seems to be abandoned by God. Here, a small-town pastor (Gunnar Bjornstrand) trying to minister a declining congregation, finds himself suffering from a crisis of faith as well as his failure to respond to the earthly love offered to him by his obstinately faithful, ailing mistress (Ingrid Thulin). He is thus unable to appease a disturbed parishioner’s (Max von Sydow) devastating fear of nuclear annihilation. He could only convey to the man his own doubts about the existence of God. The man commits suicide on his way back.

In this film, too, number of players is limited, and of which only three are the main conversationists. Bergman’s use of time, a period of few hours, reminds one of the short time-span seen in Strindberg plays and that which enforces the viewer to remain intent all through. As Peter Cowie, a specialist in Swedish films, says, ‘…he shoots the picture with an uncompromising severity that demands total concentration from the spectator’. A six-minute episode of the letter written to the pastor with a normal close-up of Thulin is such an example. The use of light by his cameraman Sven Nykvist brings the coldness of the theme, that is itself a lesson for the theatre student.

The Silence was made just after Winter Light and in the same year,1963.  Ingrid Thulin and Gunnel Lindblom, respectively, playing two sisters displaying contrasting attitudes toward life and are estranged emotionally from one another. The younger who has a kid son (Jorgen Lindstrom), is a bit of the sensuous type as Leo Braudy had argued identifying her with the physical type as she is shown bathing and having sex. She wants to break away from the bindings of her elder sister who is an intellectual type and is a professional translator who keeps sick and, according to Braudy, is repulsed by sex and only masturbates. As they try to reach their destination, metaphorically, their relationship turns sourer. The kid-son remains a spectator and is more of a ‘perceiver’. 

In this last of his trilogy, Bergman absolutely denies the existence of God and the eerie presence of the dwarves in the otherwise empty hotel with an elderly lanky steward-in-attendance gives the film that feeling of silence and emptiness. The Freudian implications, like in the previous two of the trilogy are much more starkly picturized. The nonverbal communication is done by Bergman with the use of the hands, which is a tool that is effectively applied on the stage.      

Bergman’s questioning of the existence of God and the absurdity of existence itself, are the defining themes that recurred in his films. But behind these there is the Strindberg shadow. Mysticism and allegories that the playwright had brought in, in his plays, and the dream forms are all, too, obviously present in Bergman, too. Johannes Riis has quoted Marilyn Johns Blackwell, who has studied how Strindberg’s character patterns of his chamber plays influenced Bergman chamber films. She had said that Bergman draws on Strindberg’s contrast between characters who ‘use words to insulate themselves against an unpleasant truth’ and the variations of those who are capable of perceiving supernatural phenomena, of divining the truth, and of stripping away the facades of lies and deceits, like the schizophrenic woman in Through a Glass Darkly, the forlorn mistress in Winter Light, or the kid in The Silence.        

And then there is the personal conflict with religion that both Strindberg and Bergman had experienced during their own respective lifetimes. Blatantly speaking, both had placed Love above God.

Though it is purely coincidental, but it is worth mentioning here that, Chetana on their forty-eighth anniversary presented Ujjwal Chattopadhyay’s Kusum Kusum, an adaptation of Giris Karnad’s Flowers, which happens to depict the same theme of the conflict of choice between God and Love. And watching it I felt the combination of the father in Through a Glass Darkly, and the pastor in Winter Light, both played by Gunnar Bjornstrand, rolled into the tormented character of the priest Abhay played by Sujan Mukhopadhyay. It was a great experience to perceive Bergman’s presence in an important theatre production of Calcutta.

[I would like to express my gratitude to Ishita Mukherjee for providing me different YouTube links to view some of the films.]     

DAMINI- HEY : a Sayak production

DAMINI- HEY : a Sayak production

The Bengali theatre scene in the present times has a number of very brilliant productions to boast of and one such is Sayak’s latest, DAMINI-HEY, a play written by Chandan Sen from two short stories by Amar Mitra.  The viewers were treated to a very superbly done play that gave them a reason to believe in positive thinking and also to have the pleasure of acknowledging the self-esteem of the protagonist, a young girl, who fights all odds to keep her head high. Meghnad Bhattacharya takes Sayak once again to cross yet another milestone in their journey to reach new destinations of purposeful theatre.

Chandan’s play has a storyline in order to deliver a very strong message on the Indian philosophy of ethics and morality, and that gives the play a parable-touch which is a pretty rare genre in play-writing, no doubt. Chandan as a playwright has a definite style of his own and has since long, carved out a niche of his own, in the Bengali drama world. His plays lately have deep philosophical contents that force the viewers to sit up and think. But no play can reach out to the people sitting in the auditorium unless the imagination of the maker of the play gives it the shape he wants. The play that the viewers get to see is the end result of an intensive intellectual exercise that the director coordinates with the dramatist. The director is the key person who visualises the ultimate stage product and decides on how things are to synchronize and fall into place like the jig-saw puzzle. This is adequately evident in the present production. Meghnad is one of the few directors who do their homework in absolute earnest. And that is one of the key factors why his works get the blessings of the box-office in spite of the absence of celebrity actors apart from himself.

Meghnad’ designing of the play is simple and is bereft of any gimmick or other contrivance that might stun the viewers and generate a sense of awe, and thereby escape from the finer points of presentation of the play. His way of communicating with his viewers is direct and he believes in presenting the play in its truest structure. He has very craftily mixed the proscenium form with the folk form and thus has been successful in creating a unique ethnicity in his presentation which certainly is different in form from the earlier productions of Sayak. Every actor did his or her bit perfectly and so the stage remained vibrant all through. Another aspect that needs mention is that, the total coordination on the stage was a treat to enjoy. Kathakali, one of the most promising young talents on the Bengali stage did a scintillating job as the young protagonist. It was astonishing to see her take such a huge workload. Biswanath Roy, Pradip Das and Uttam Dey as three old men of three generations were equally outstanding as was Subrata Bhowal as the Pradhan. Meghnad in a short supporting role once again proved his class. The songs created by Subhendu Maity with an apt background score by Swapan Badopadhyay have contributed immensely to bring about a rustic flavour to the presentation. The stage design by Soumik-Piyali has very suitably brought in the paranormal undertone of the content, though Joy Sen’s lights failed to deliver the desired effects. Kudos should pour in for Panchanan Manna’s make-up job. 

SOME BRILLIANT PRODUCTIONS AND.....

SOME BRILLIANT PRODUCTIONS AND.....

The last blog I wrote was way back in April this year on four distinguishing productions of four different types on the Bengali stage (see my blog Binodini, Kadambari.....and Usha.......). Two of them were on Binodini Dasi, the great doyen of the Bengali stage, one was on Kadambari Devi and the remaining one was an autobiographic play by Usha Ganguli.  There was no new blog from me since then so at the very beginning I beg to be excused. There has been a load of productions on the Bengali stage in these six months as well as in the earlier months that goes back to a few of 2013 as well, the productions of which I had not discussed about. The productions ranged from some brilliant to mediocre ones apart from a few trash ones, but most of them need a detailed discussion. As it would not be wise to include all these productions in a couple of blogs, I would rather mention the more significant ones and discuss briefly about them as I believe that they have definitely made their marks in the Bengali theatre scenario.

 Last year Nirbak Obhinay Academy under the direction of Anjan Deb presented a workshop based production, DHUSAR GODHULI, constructed on a poem by Sankha Ghosh and a script by Suranjana Dasgupta, using mime, dance forms with support from readings and songs of Lalan. The compositions and coordination amongst the performers were so well programmed that each of them took the form of framed paintings. Another production of last year worth discussing about was Nirnay’s RAS a play by Subhankar Das Sharma from the short story of the same name by Narendranath Mitra. The director Sangeeta Paul has proved her acumen beyond doubt and has been bold enough to present a very passionate kissing sequence which was very much consistent with the tone of the scene. Manoj Mitra’s CHHOTO CHHOTO BARI was presented by Anya Theatre also last year under the direction of Bibhas Chakraborty. The senior-most dramatist of our stage who has explored new vistas in Bengali playwriting has dealt with a very urban problem where the noxious bonding of business and politics murders the dreams of the working middle class. The sparkling dialogues of Manoj had been beautifully put forth through the actors by Bibhas to create a number of brilliant dramatic moments.

 Kalindi Bratyajan’s 2014 production, KAY?, is a Bratya Basu play of a different nature. Here he presents a detective play where comedy takes the front seat and viewers are treated with an in-depth analysis of the interrelationship between human beings and their psychoanalytical demeanours. His use of lights and the background music in his compositions is sheer brilliance and sometimes give surrealistic touches to the different scenes. There were other productions as well that have very aptly dealt with the subject of interrelationship between human beings. One of them is yet another Bratya Basu play, AAPATATO EI BHABE DUJANER DEKHA HOYE THAKE, staged brilliantly by Debesh Chattopadhyay for Lake Town Sansriti. Two characters separately speak out the stories of their own lives and the viewers find the age-old questions of man-woman relationships once again vibrantly facing them. The design of the play is a new genre that certainly is a matter of pride for the Bengali stage. Another of this type of play has socio-political trappings. Inspired by playwright Vaclav Havel, the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first of the Czech Republic, and also the recipient of the Gandhi Peace Prize, Chandan Sen has written SPARDHABARNO in the light of one of Havel’s Vanec plays, ‘Protest’ not only as a firm protest against Fascism together with a strong support for Democracy, but also a self-analysis of those who have lost their own bearings to stand up and steer the system for the need of history. Dwijen Banerjee and his group Sanstab have done a commendable job. The other such production was by Ekush Shatak. KHELNA BHANGAR SHABDO written by Subhas Sengupta and directed very efficiently by Adhir Bose deals with a problem that is not rare in our society but is rather not discussed aloud. Negligence of the parents towards their children is not only a problem in the affluent society but also eats into the not so well-off families. Another striking production on the this theme of bonding between people in spite of hurdles has been aptly projected by Subhas Sengupta in his play, JANMASTHAMI STAGED BY Behala Anukar.

There were a few very grandiose productions that had their presence felt on the Bengali stage in the first half of 2014. Two of them dealt on the lives of two historical characters but their objectives lay in mirroring the present political settings of our country. Rangapat under the baton of Tapanjyoti had a very scintillating presentation of Amit Maitra’s DHARMASHOK. Based on the life of Ashoka and his transformation from the tyrannous Chandashok to a Buddhist Dharmashok, the play tries to draw parallels to the present scenario and this simplification of interpreting history in the present context mars the presentation. Such has been the case, too, of Swapnasandhani’s KARKATKRANTIR DESH, a play by the poet Sreejato and directed by Kaushik Sen. In the process of narrating the life of the elder son of Shahjahan, Darashuko it tries a bit blatantly to focus on the political scenario just ahead of the recent Lok Sabha polls, instead of concentrating on the tragedy of the protagonist which itself could have brought the message home.  In sharp contrast to these productions which tend to politicise historical facts, Jojak’s DADATHAKUR written by Ujjwal Chattopadhyay on the life of the great satirist Sharat Chandra Pandit who was universally called Dadathakur strictly adheres to the great man’s life story. Directed by Dulal Lahiri it gives the viewers ample scope to find out for themselves how much relevance the man’s deeds and writings and songs have to the present day happenings. The other very flamboyant and pompous production was by Paikpara Indraranga. They produced Ujjwal Chattopadhyay’s ARABYA RAJANI, which though overtly talked about the oppression of the mighty over the meek; it essentially sings a love song. The dramatist has used the story-telling literary device of the Arabian Nights to give his play a magnetic attraction for his viewers. Ujjwal’s debut in direction, too, has shown enough promise of his directorial wisdom.  

Another very important happening on the Bengali stage need mentioning separately for its form as well as its content. BIYE-GAUNI KANDAN CHAPA is a play written by Chandan Sen on the Muslim marriage singers form Burdwan, Birbhum, Murshidabad and Nadia districts of West Bengal on whom a book has been written in four volumes by Ratna Rashid. Ashok Mukhopadhyay has given a new dramatic language to the play by amalgamating the folk form with the proscenium structure. It is certain to get its share of applause and appreciation from the viewers and also find a place of grace in the history of Bengali theatre for innovative handling of the form. Dialogues with particular dialects have been used so fittingly that the moments get the fitting ambience. Songs, naturally, play a significant role in this production and the twelve songs that have been presented so excellently seemed to become characters of the play itself.

A few more productions needs mention though I strongly believe all of them should get a far more space in my blog. However, I am trying to do justice by mentioning them in brief. Yet another play has been produced by Gobordanga Naksha under Ashis Das’s direction on Binodini Dasi named BINODINI, A WOMAN A HUMAN written by Mainak Sengupta more in a dissertation mode. A very well produced play no doubt. Shilpi Sangha has produced Chanchal Bhattacharya’s BOMBAGARER RAJA based on six writings of Sukumar Roy, a rare feat, indeed. Seema Mukhopadhyay’s direction has given the play a superb touch which the viewers had enjoyed to their hearts out. Swati Roy’s THOR BORI KHARA of Oihik and directed by Arindam Roy is a collage of life’s happenings that may go unnoticed sometimes or may have some bearings on our lives. Ichhapore Aleya’s AAPON GHARE PARER AAMI, written by Mainak Sengupta and directed by Sangita Choudhury seemed to be a thoroughly professional job done with élan and demands kudos for their efforts. Acting is their forte, no doubt. Equally commendable was Anya Theatre’s NIJER KHOJE, a play adapted from Jean Anouilh’s ‘Traveller without Luggage’ by Subrata Nandi and directed by Sanat Chanda. Bengali theatre goers are familiar with Anouilh’s name courtesy ‘Antigone’. However, Nandi has kept true to the original though has aptly given it a Bengali appearance. The stage designed by Bibhas Chakraborty is a lesson for the theatre students on how stage-setting can be pertinently enhance the drama. Heritage and its devastation by land-sharks has been the theme for Shouvanik’s VIRUS-e BHOOT and Kolkata Playmakers’ AMAR SRMITI CHALLENGE CUP. Interestingly both the plays have ghosts playing pivotal roles in tiding over the situations. The former has been written by Debkumar Ghosh and directed by Chandan Das and is a comedy that the viewers enjoy for its pun-added dialogues. The later one is written by Sumitro Bandopadhyay and directed by Ram Mukhopadhyay is also a very well orchestrated production.  Naihati Somay 1400 under the direction of Arpita Ghosh presented KHARIR TEER written by Alok Biswas. It is an important production well performed. It hints on the story of a very black spot in the cultural history of our state as well as of a very unhealthy political situation that prevailed in the 80s.       

Binodini, Kadambari.....and Usha

Binodini, Kadambari.....and Usha

The Kolkata stage recently witnessed a number of productions that had been designed to pay homage to womanhood in general and to two ladies in particular who have had a long lasting influence on the Bengali psyche, particularly in the Bengali cultural domain. Of them one lady the legendary stage queen Binodini Dasi is passing through her sesquicentennial year, while the other though not so ceremoniously celebrated is Kadambari Devi, the sister-in-law of Rabindranath whose untimely death left the young poet shattered, not to speak of an indelible scar on the social status of the Jorasanko family.

Behala Anudarshi’s presentation of Ek Nari Kadambari written and directed by Sumana Chakraborty did not indulge in scandal mongering as is perhaps the favourite past-time of us Bengalis, and is more so if it concerns someone from a family that is generally revered by the common man. If it had not been so then pornographic literature scandalizing such personalities would not have topped the best-seller list keeping well researched analytical works far behind. Fortunately the play by Sumana never strode for cheap applause. A story with facts and fiction mixed adequately is told on the stage which brings in different characters like Kadambari’s husband Jyotiridranth, her playmate brother-in-law Rabindranath and other family members from whom viewers get to know the new bride of the Jorasanko Tagores.  Kadambari before ending her life writes a letter to her consort Rabi where she mentions Bindini Dasi as a detractor for her husband Jyoti and she also mentions that Rabi’s recent marriage had left her forlorn. The play never transgresses the modesty of the characters despite a few episodes that is difficult to comprehend.

Binodini is the first actress in this part of the world who had penned an autobiographical sketch entitled Aamar Katha which was published in 1913.  This piece in the form of a number of letters addressed to “Garrick of the East” the great dramatist-actor-director and the father of Bengali stage, Giris Chandra Ghose is a gem of a literary work as is her later work Aamar Abhinetri Jiban. But unfortunately Binodini’s literary talents have been purposefully overlooked by the various theatre historians and this has rightly been pointed out in the introduction by the editors Soumitra Chatterjee and Nirmalya Acharya of a collected works by Binodini. Her experiences and observations have been penned in a lucid style that was certainly much progressive in nature and it adds an important hindsight to the theatre world of the late nineteenth century. Nirbak Abhinoy Academy presented Suranjana Dasgupta in a mono-acting as Binodini in their latest production Aamar Katha. Excerpts from the original work were presented with imaginative innovations.

Yet another play in commemoration of the great actress was presented by Paikpara Aakhor in their latest production entitled Meni (Binodini) o Kolkatar Thiatar. Their earlier production on the life of the great singing star Gawaharjaan was exemplary in every aspect thus it was natural for the viewers to expect a presentation to touch the benchmark or even surpass it. The play concentrated on the different dramas and the different characters the great actress had played. Thus it was a huge workload on Anandi Bose to handle the part. The contemporary theatre scene of the late nineteenth century and the filthy politics played by the then owners and different theatre big-shots was missing thus the play seemed not to have kept in tune to its own title. It was a treat to watch the veteran thespian Asit Bose in the role of Giris Chandra.

The fourth production in our discussion is absolutely different from the other three. Rangkarmee’s Antaryatra is an old production that Usha Ganguly has been doing since the last twelve years perhaps as a soul-searching journey of a theatre worker. One finds glimpses of such legendary productions like Mitti ki Gari, Parichay, Guria Ghar, Himmat Mai and such likes. Simultaneously there is an effort to identify and establish a niche for the woman actor in the social as well as the cultural fronts.

Before signing off it can be said that the Kolkata viewers loved them all.