Adapting a piece of literature in a visual or performing medium has always elicited bitterly divided opinions. There are people who would swear that a particular story was ruined when it was mounted as a movie, while others will testify that the visual or the performing medium confirmed to their own respective images. Now imagine performing a set of poems on the stage. You’ll probably not like to be in the thick of it. And that would be understandable. And yet, people try.
With Blank Page, Sunil Shanbag’s Tamaasha Theatre Production came with a refreshing idea of, what they call, interpreting contemporary Indian poetry through theatre, music and movement. Refreshing because for a very long time, no one has tried to adapt any poetry for a stage production. I say adapt and yet I am wrong. To call it an adaptation would be to label it clumsily. Not to mention cruelly. In more ways than one, Shanbag’s own usage “interpretation,” is more apt in fact.
Looking at the selection of poetry, one can see that it is an eclectic mix, cutting through ideology, fame and form. While there are established names such as Kedarnath Singh, Namdeo Dhasal, Meena Kandasamy and Waman Dada Kardak, there are also supremely talented young guns such as Arundhathi Subramaniam and Sapan Saran. The latter is also part of the performing and production team.
The presence of big names in fact makes the project more difficult to pull off. It means that these poems would have been read far and wide and will have a following of their own. It is therefore very much possible that quite a few of them would walk in to see the interpretation of their favourite piece of poetry. Confirming to someone’s expectations can be severely restricting for an artist. Having seen the performance, I can safely say that even if this pressure existed, it surely did not hang high over their heads.
The performances are seamless, and that’s quite an achievement considering the range of poems chosen. While Kandasamy’s ‘A Cunning Stunt’ and Dhasal’s ‘Man, You Should Explode’ are aggressive in their own right, Adil Jussawala’s ‘Love’ and Nissim Ezekiel’s ‘Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher’ delve in soft motions. Yet, the transitions are not jarring. A lot of the credit goes to actors and performers. Many actors switch from a very aggressive and demanding performance to those which require subtle movements.
The performance starts with Kedarnath Singh’s ‘Sada Panna,’ or Blank Page, which also lends its name to the performance. The movements leading to this poem are worth mentioning too. Those movements and the first poem clearly establish the fact that we are going to witness something unusual and special. And that unusualness is not merely for the sake of it.
Of the other performances, Divya Jagdale and Sunil Shanbag perform Imtiaz Dharker’s ‘Battle-line’ with utmost conviction, so is Nisha Dhar’s recitation of the Kashmiri poem by Radhey Nath ‘Masarrat’ on the pains and tribulation of Kashmiri Pandits. In between, breaking the genre continuity is Nissim Ezekiel’s ‘Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher.’ Presented sublimely, in accordance with the mood of the poem, the poem leaves lasting impressions. Sujata Bhatt’s ‘Love in a Bathtub,’ has been performed equally sublimely with the eyes of the actors doing most of the work.
Years later we’ll remember the bathtub
the position of the taps
the water,slippery
as if a bucketful of eels had joined us…
we’ll be old, our children grown up
but we’ll remember water sloshing
the useless soap,
the mountain of wet towels.
‘Remember the bathtub in Belfast?’
we’ll prod each other-
‘Dukanwale Dada,’ in Marathi by Waman Dada Kardak stands out as much for its tone and tenor, as for its content. Apart from the seamless and uncluttered performances, the two things that bind the show together are Maithily Bhupatkar’s apt choreography and Rohit Das’ compositions. Maithily’s use of contemporary steps, especially those that lead to Subramanian’s ‘Advice to a Four-Year-Old on Her First Day of School,’ is a masterpiece.
Pink-and-white girls
who can play fairies in end-of-term plays.
Symmetrical girls
who don’t stick out at odd angles in the march-past.
Geometrical girls
always equipped with compass boxes.
Cultivated girls
with dictions manicured by millitant horticulturists.
Musical girls
who chorus “good morning” in orchestrated D minor.
Soft spoken girls
with tones so hushed it’s pardonable they don’t curtsey.
Streamlined girls
who don’t run into awkward lengths in 4-line report cards.
Ornithological girls
who prefer daffodils to Venus fly traps.
Sapan Saran’s interpretation of her own composition ‘Bra’ is worth mentioning as well. Performed in a faux-comedy form, with matching movements, the poem goes a long way in making the audience understand how a piece of undergarment, an otherwise unremarkable object, can become a potent tool to reclaim space in a patriarchal society.
Hridaynath Jahdav and Sukant Goel perform Namdeo Dhasal’s ‘Man You Should Explode’ with the potent rage that it deserves. Dhasal’s poetry not only kills you, it also drags you halfway to your grave. Jahdav’s Marathi recitation is capably matched by Goel’s performance of its English translation to a point where the language ceases to exist in its form and reduces into merely a set of words.
There could be no better way to interpret Dhasal’s work. Nothing else could possibly have done justice to the work of a man who was slighted by society, and was never given his due by either the intelligentsia or the literati of his time.
Other performances have their own unique strengths. The audience reception appears to confirm that. Blank Page never bores in its 55 minutes extent. A complete delight for poetry and theatre lovers alike, this looks all set for an extended run. That would make it another winner from Shanbag’s stable.
