Perhaps Aristotle was the first to think about “Liveness”. He might have had concerns about how the actions staged can look real like. It is impossible to create a sense of reality when we stage actions that happen in different geographical areas at different times. At the time of Aristotle, people didn’t have modern lighting techniques. Nor they knew dramatic techniques like play within the play. So Aristotle simply thought it to be impossible to bring actions with an epic structure (both in terms of time and in terms of place) within the frame work of drama. So he prescribed the “Three Unities” and made a clear line between drama and epic. What is done in an epic cannot be performed in drama. This is one of the implications of his theory. Here in “The Fire and The Rain” Girish Karnad reworks an episode from an Indian epic with the accompaniment of some simple stage techniques and some new narrative techniques (in which he is a master).
The story is taken from the Vanaparva (Forest Canto) of Mahabharata. As it can be guessed the actions in this story happens at different places like the place where the Yajna is conducted, The Ashram of Raibhya, a place near the forest Ashram of Yavakri’s father, the Forest, etc. So the location changes very quickly.
Traditionally what is done is that when the action at one place is completed, the curtain falls and then the play continues from a new scene. But when this happens, the continuity is lost and the visual experience is obstructed and the spectators’ consciousnesses murmur that they are watching a play and not a reality. They get a realistic experience when the actions are presented at a stretch without the interference of the curtain. For that the dramatist employs the simple technique of dividing the stage into two parts. One part is kept darkened while the light is focused on the other part. When the scene changes, the darkened part will brighten and the other part will darken. Thus the shift in place is made natural to a certain extent.
This is a common technique that we can see in many other plays such as “The First Manned Flight To Venus” where scenes from Earth and Venus are shown on the same stage without a curtain fall. In Girish Karnad’s play also there are no curtain falls (except that in the end). However it should be re-stated that this stage technique is not an invention by Karnad. But he uses it to good effect.
( I remember one instance from a Malayalam novel by M.Mukundan where some people who are interested in the art of drama performs a play (in Delhi). The theme of the play is anti-Brahminic. And there is one scene where a Dalit woman is stripped off by the elites. And the Director who never compromises in Drama insists that the woman playing that part should act nude. The actress also agrees because she is also dedicated to acting. They are performing this play to state their views not for money. They plan to enact this scene by a particular light effect where the entire stage will be darkened and a small gleam of light will be focused on the stomach of the actress who becomes nude. Then there will be no light above and under her stomach. However the play is performed in front of sensible spectators and press reporters. When this scene comes, the actress becomes nude and the light is focused on her stomach. But suddenly a thousand camera flashes and torch lights comes to the stage! Later the never compromising director burns this script!)
Let us come back to Karnad. The structure of the play also contributes to the realistic experience. The structure is such that there is a play within the play. Girish Karnad is a master craftsman and he had made the plot a well-knitted one. The story begins from and and moves around the Fire sacrifice. It is possible to have a main plot and an under plot. But here it seems that there are many plots. This is a chapter from the epic Mahabharatha and it contains some of the epic elements and we cannot expect Aristotlean “Unity of Action” here. The fire sacrifice seems to be the main plot. But there are equally or more important sub plots like the love between Arvasu and Nittilai. One will be tempted to take this as main plot. Yavakri’s thirst for revenge is another chapter in this drama. Even the Brahma Rakshasa has his own issues. And he comes and destroys the expectations of the spectators when they were eagerly waiting to see Nittilai coming back to life. And Arvasu gives priority to this burning soul than Nittilai.
Arvasu and the others perform a play in the stage while all other characters watch. So there happens to be one more stage (within the stage). Then this gives the impression that what was previously happening in the stage was real. And it is this element of ‘play within the play’ that transcends this in to a hypermediated play. The spectators may think that the real drama is the drama within the drama. However this is very common in the Indian mythology and works like ‘Kathasaritsagaram’ ,’Panchatantram’ and ‘Aesop’s Fables’, but never in Indian or any other dramatic traditions. And this is what Karnad does in this play. And makes it look real not by a lot of technological back-up but by his craftsmanship and good narrative techniques.
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Girish Karnad is often praised for his stance on social issues like caste. This play is supposed to be an anti-Brahminical play. This anti-Brahminical elements are mostly expressed through the speech of some of the characters especially Nittilai. Like
“These high-caste men are glad enough to bed our women but not to wed them.” (Nittilai, Page.8). Nittilai also expresses her scorn for Brahmanical culture when she speaks about Yajna and Knowledge (Page.10 and 11) . This continues when she takes care of Arvasu also.
However what I think is that the play doesn’t have any strong anti-Brahmanical stance. The dramatist never considers the tribal culture better than the Brahmanic culture. There are only two major characters from the non-Brahmanical background (Nittilai and Andhaka). A Brahmin youth is in love with a tribal girl. But they could not get married. Here in this play it is not the Brahmanic culture that is responsible for this. But it is the tribal tradition that is responsible for this! Even the heroine is brutally murdered by her husband and brother. (So they really deserve to be called as villains). It seems that the playwright wishes to criticize some of the elements in the existing Brahmanic ideology, just like the wrong way of gaining knowledge by Yavakri has been criticized (which can be replaced by a better one).
However the real criticism to the Brahmanical culture comes in the play within the play where Indra and Vritra are the characters. Apart from the account given in the play, there is more significance for the Indra-Vritra rivalry. In Rigveda, there is a part where Indra kills Vritra. Some historians interpret this as the Aryan conquest over the Dravidians. However Vritra really wins the applause of the spectators. Also Arvasu expresses his contept for the gods of the elites. However it is Indra who in the end solves all the problems. So it seems that the fire of criticism against the caste system has been put out by the rain god of the elites.
Girish Karnad’s plays are meant for the middle class audience. And he gives importance to novel narrative techniques rather than mere social commentary. Perhaps these are the reasons why the play doesn’t take a strong anti-Brahmanic position.
All in all the play gives us a good (reading) experience.
I like your points, first, about Aristotle, but even his teacher thought about liveness. In Plato's allegory "The Cave," the shadow from the fire light is his example of the difference between liveness (ideal forms) and representations, but that representations can become what is live for people if that is all they know. Later he writes "The Protagorus," where he talks about writing as a form of "false rhetoric"; that is, if an idea exists in thought, which it can for the True Philosopher, then sharing that truth to others through language, like speaking and especially writing, somehow only approximates the truth, lessens the ideal, in some way. It is, in otherwords, live only in a sense of being always already false or a copy of true liveness.
ReplyDeleteNice connection to use drama to shift time and place to attempt to encapture more of the epic on stage. All the world is a stage, but you can't fit the who world on a stage unless you do something like this, like Karnad has done. Rather than saying the play is a hypermediated one because of the play within a play, instead, you might say that the play has characteristics of hypermediation. That is, the construct of the play and that there are characters in the play that represent the characters in the play within a play, are clearly indicative of hypermediated properties. But, elsewhere in FIRE this isn't the case--that hypermediation isn't the most important thing. In fact, it's because of that that the move to use hypermediation becomes more important.
Nice points about the novel narrative techniques used to capture the attention of middle class audiences.
Sandeep:
ReplyDeleteThis is a very detailed post and I like the comments you have made about the play. I particularly like your discussion of how the play and the diretcors might use the space on stage to suggest scene changes. This is also an inexpensive way of presenting theatrical performances because it might be too expensive to have elaborate stage settings.
On stylistic comment I have on your writing is that many of your ideas are presented in parentheses (brackets). Rather than do this, you can integrate them into your sentences. Parentheses are used to add supplemental information but all the information you provide is integral to what you are saying.