INDIAN ENGLISH DRAMA
Models and Techniques
Dr. S. KRISHNA BHATTA
Among the various forms of Indian writing in
English, drama seems to lag far behind poetry and fiction However,
ever since the English language firmly established its roots in the country,
there has been writing of plays in English in spite of their generally poor
stage-worthiness. Though it is rather difficult to keep track of all the plays
and playlets published in book-form and in
periodicals so far, some 400 plays have been included in the latest
Bibliography compiled by the present writer and published in Perspectives on
Indian Drama in English (OUP 1977) under the auspices of Karnatak University, Dharwar.
Regarding the models and techniques employed by
the playwrights of both the pre-Independence and the post-Independence phases,
it is clear that some playwrights like Sri Aurobindo
rather unnecessarily allowed themselves to be influenced by the Elizabethan
drama and did not make use of the traditional Sanskrit theatre and folk-stage
of our country; while there are also examples like the plays of Girish Karnad, Arati Nagarwalla, Partap Sharma and others where some techniques of our
ancient dramatic tradition are employed with advantage.
In Perseus, The Viziers and other plays, Sri Aurobindo
strictly resorts to the Elizabethan model – particularly the five-plot
structure, sub-plots and lengthy speeches in verse.
Though Kailasam shows a
better stage sense than Sri Aurobido, he too does not
evince much technical innovatio. He does not
demonstrate the same liking towards the models and techniques of our classical
drama and folk-stage as he has for drawing his themes from our ancient lore.
Though he does not fully follow Sri Aurobindo in
adopting Elizabethan models and techniques, he is not completely free from
their influence. In fact, he tries, though unsuccessfully, to cast the lives of
his heoes like Karna into the
Elizabethan mould of a tragic hero; and, while the portrayal of Karna fails for want of a major tragic flaw of his own, that
of Keechaka suffers from excessive idealisation. Further, the five-set structure employed in The
Curse bears little relevance to the development of the plot. Even in the
playwright’s much-admired piece. The Purpose, he ignores the utility of
our dramatic tradition: for example, a Sutradhara
would well introduce the powerful theme to the audience, and folk-motifs could
have been effectively employed to present Ekalavya’s
forest abode in a natural setting.
Compared to Sri Aurobindo
and Kailasam, other major playwrights like Harindranath Chattopadhyaya and Bharati Sarabhai are less
influenced by Elizabethan drama. Chattopadhyaya
presents the lives of the Indian saints in an almost traditional manner, though
he does not directly follow the models and techniques of our classical as well
as folk-stage; at times we see a shadow of the Sutradhara
in the form of a Preface (as in Jayadeva). There are also examples
like Siddhartha where he overdoes the use of the Prologue, the Epilogue,
the chorus and modern stage-techniques like light and sound effects. Sarabhai too shows a greater inclination to Indian
techniques than the Western. In fact, though the chorus in her, The Well of
the people (employed for indicating change of scene) reminds us of the
similar technique in Greek plays, she is obviously influenced by the folk-stage
of our country: and in her Two Women, she brings out the tragic effect
without resorting to the use of typically Elizabethan lengthy speeches and
sub-plots. As regards Asif Currimbhoy,
the success of his one-act plays is mainly due to Western influence. But, most
of his plays may fail on the stage on account of his excessive dependence on
cinematographic techniques and other stage gimmicks.
So far as the minor playwrights of both phases are
concerned, it is rather difficult to trace the influences regarding the models
and techniques employed except in the cases of a few; but many do not seem to
have taken the problem seriously at all.
Of the Western influence, the compact one-act play form appears to have
been a more dominant influence than Elizabethan drama. Regarding the latter, the
five-act structure is employed in only some plays like V. V. S. Aiyangar’s Ramarajya, Sadar-Joshi’s Acharya Drona, Prabhu’s Apes in
the Parlour and Gaffor’s
Dr. Lover. But, the mere division into “five acts” is deceptive for the
“Acts” are only scenes. There are also examples of a few plays like Krishnaswami’s The Flute of Krishna wherein the Elizabethan
lengthy speeches and verse-form are employed (of course, marring the stage
effect) in addition to the five-act structure. On the other hand, the Western
one-act play form serves as a model to many playwrights, but it is rather
difficult to trace the influence of short compact plays by Sanskrit dramatists
like Bhasa in this regard. Anyway the compactness of
the form must have been a major attraction to these playwrights in their
attempts to dramatise an episode or focus light on a
particular aspect of one’s life. This can be observed in some of the plays
already considered: Abbas’s Invitation to
Immortality, Borgsonkar’s Bhasmasura,
Currimbhoy’s The Refugee and The Miracle Seed.
As this study reveals, only a few authors have
attempted employing the full-fledged play form with some success. Apart from
the plays of Sri Aurobindo and Kailasam,
Ramaswami Sastri’s Droupadi, Mrinalini
Sarabhaj’s Captive Soil, Mrs. Ghosal’s Princess Kalyani, Fyzee-Rahamin’s Daughter of Ind
are some examples worth mentioning. As regards two-act
and three-act play models, there are quite a good number in both the pre-Independence
and the post-Independence phases. There are cases where these structures are
suited to the requirements of the plot; to illustrate, Kailasam’s
The Purpose, Chattopadhyaya’s The Coffin, Bharati Sarabhai’s Two Women, Currimbhoy’s Inquilab, Gurcharan Das’s Larins Sahib. But, in some cases like Lakhan Deb’s Tigerclaw,
the compact one-act play structure would have been more suitable than the three-act
structure.
Even in employing Western techniques such as the
Prologue, the Epilogue, etc., there is a marked difference between playwright
and playwright. While Sri Aurobindo employs the
Prologue in Perseus to introduce a
conversation between the goddess Athene and the god
Poseidon and thereby indicate the future conflict between the good and the
evil, Chattopadhyaya’s Prologue in his Siddhartha presents
the image of the present crisis caused by the nuclear race. The Prologue and
the Epilogue serve as two terminal props to the sequences of the plot in Mrinalini’s Captive Soil, while Shanti
Jhaveri makes these techniques useful in linking the
past and the future with the present in Deluge; and, in FyzeeRahamin’s Daughter of Ind,
they are used to expound the love-theme. There is a praytr
to the Goddess of Learning in Mrs. Ghosal’s prologue,
which partly performs the function of the Sutradhara
(who could have been directly introduced with advantage in many such plays).
Also, the flashback technique has been occasionally employed by some playwrights.
The flashback employed in Swami Sivananda’s Radha’s Prem to
present an episode in Lord Krishna’s life infuses some dramatic effect into a
prolonged discussion about the Lord.
Some playwrights like Sri Aurobindo
do not seem to rest content with adopting the Elizabethan model and technique;
and they make their theatre reverberate with numerous echoes of the Elizabethan
drama also. In the case of Sri Aurobindo, the
selection of titles like The Viziers of Bassora (similar
to Timon of Athens), the sequence of raising the
dagger and lowering it by Aslaugh in Eric (like
Macbeth), Cleopatra’s mistaking her son Timocles’
flattery for real love in Rodogune (like
King Lear)–are some of the Shakespearian echoes heard. Kailasam
makes a deliberate attempt to impart the colour of
Shakespearian tragic heroes to his Karna and Keechaka. Moreover, Lobo Prabhu
makes his character Benny (in Apes in the Parlour) repeat Mark Antony’s words. The effect of all such echoes is to emphasie the derivative nature of these plays.
There are many instances where our classical and
folk-stage techniques would have been more useful to the playwright than the
Western ones. One can imagine the stage effect in The Beggar Princess, had
Dilip Kumar Roy and Indira Devi employed an Indian setting and a Sutradhara
(instead of the Prologue and the Epilogue) to dramatise
the life of the Indian princess-saint Mira; and the employment of a few folk-songs
and dances indicative of her popularity among the masses would have made the
presentation far more realistic. There are plays like Smt.
Thakur’s Mother and Child where the Pravesaka (reporting) technique would have filled the wide
gap existing between the first two acts: Act 1 presenting the maiden Kunti’s curiosity to test the effect of the sage’s boon and
the consequent birth of Karna; and Act 2 showing Kunti as the mother of the Pandavas.
Instances are not totally lacking where
playwrights have looked to our classical and folk-stage techniques. The
reportage technique of the classical Sanskrit drama comes to the help of Arati Nagarwalla in her attempt
at making the audience know the particulars about the killing of the tiger in
her The Bait. While Gurcharan Das resorts to the “voices” technique (different voices
behind the stage) to depict the troubled mind of Lawrence in Larins Sahib, the technique of an obscure
figure’s speech (a sort of Asariravani,
a voice of the invisible) solves Sadar-Joshi’s
problem of presenting Drona’s mental conflict (in Acharya Drona)
between his ideal and the practical worlds. To show the reaction in the minds
of his characters in The Professor has a Warcry, Partap Sharma employs a mimic demon of our Indian
folk-dance Kathakali but its connection
with the situation is so loose that one gets confused about the symbol.
It is in the authors’ translations of their own
plays that we can find better instances where the Indian folk and classical
stage-techniques have been successfully employed. Dalal
employs the Sutradhara-Nati technique of the
classical Sanskrit drama in Victory. Karnad
leaves many playwrights far behind by making a dexterous use of our folk-stage
conventions and techniques like the Bhagavatar,
prayer to Lord Ganesha, masks, curtains, dolls and
story-within-a-story in his Hayavadana and
the comic pair of Akara and Makara
type in his Tughlaq.
Thus it is clear from the survey that the
playwrights in both the phases have by and large ignored our ancient dramatic
tradition comprising both the classical Sanskrit stage and folk theatre
(though here and there we find a few experiments in this regard). This is
perhaps an important reason why Indian drama in English has remained mostly
derivative and imitative.