BY T. RAGHAVACHARI

The function of song, verse and speech on the stage is to enhance the glory of the histrionic art and not to usurp its place. Verbosity is not always a virtue, particularly so on the stage. Capacity to produce the best effect with as few words as possible is the mark of culture and also of true histrionic talent. When I say so, I am keenly alive to the psychology of the spectator and still I say that the function of true histrionic art is to keep the words in the background, and keep them there until absolutely necessary to trot them out. A good pantomime, a glorious Kathakali, bear evidence to this fact. A well-cultured and freedom, loving mind loves simplicity and directness. A small mind in fetters finds joy in mere words, phrases and garish descriptions. A real actor is more often than not handicapped by words and phrases. As the great English Bard says it will be all ‘words, words,’ and nothing but words. Verses and songs are even more dangerous foes of the histrionic art. I am not one of those who would have verses and songs chivvied out of a play. Music has a place on the stage; the same it has in life. Otherwise music on the stage is unreal, artificial, and chokes out the true art.

On the present day South Indian stage, words and music have mercilessly elbowed out the histrionic art. It is a veritable hurdle and sack race for the poor actor. He is compelled to start with the weight of the grandiloquent words, phrases and descriptions forged for him by the playwright. The poor author cannot be blamed either. Indians love words, and the author is naturally filled with an ambition to display his erudition and command of words and phrases. The actor has to mouth them and spit them in the auditorium. To the distinguished assembly in the auditorium (Madras and Bangalore especially), every neat little turning of a high sounding word or phrase is art. Not one in a hundred considers whether the language, the gesture, the facial play of the actor correctly portray the bhava of the situation. It is enough if the mouthing is clear and loud and accompanied by any artificial pose. Take for instance the role of a Shivaji, a Kabir, or a Ramadas. Shivaji is known to be a Mahratta hero who triumphed over the Mahomedans and built up a glorious empire. Our audience is therefore satisfied if the following conditions are fulfilled by the actor. He should possess a good, well-built figure. He should display a long nose. He should look daggers at one and all. He should speak loud and in a commanding voice. He should walk with a high step. He should sing verses with all the flourishes of ragam, and the aforesaid verses should belittle the Mussalmans and describe musically patriotism, love of country, and what our old heroes did. The subtle workings of Shivaji’s mind, his mastery over his emotions, his great charming personality, his devotion to his mother and Guru are all unimportant details, which the audience do not look for in an actor. Take Kabir. He is supposed to be a Rama-bhakta. Therefore he should always sing of the glory of Rama, about the hollowness of the world we live in and about the beauties of the world above to which we may or may not go. Kabir should always walk in the path of heaven which is traditionally full of thorns; and consequently he should step on the stage gingerly and walk in a measured march like a machine. Kabir’s faith in mundane life, his practical wisdom, his furious onslaught against caste and convention, his vigorous preaching against hypocrisy, and his rapturous ecstatic moods are foreign to the audience. If an actor portrayed the true, living, robust, humour-loving, caste-breaking Kabir, I am afraid the audience would turn away in disgust and yearn for the thorn-treading seeker of Rama in the skies. Oftentimes I have been amused at my Sanatanist friends applauding Kabir who was a caste-breaker out and out.

In other words, our Shivajis, our Kabirs, our Ramadases and many of our favourite heroes and heroines are applauded mainly because they can mouth the language in a loud and clear manner, can sing verses and songs in time and out of time, and sometimes because they can turn an ankle, shake a finger or grin a smile, irrespective of the propriety of such things.

Now take Ramadas. The audience expect him to be a miniature Kabir. Tradition requires he should cover himself up completely with namams (caste-marks) to denote that he has covered himself up with piety. He should display a profuse growth of hair allover, to indicate that his very hair-foots have grown godly and are shooting upwards, and he must sing and dance. Mind, he should sing abundantly and it would be better if he could render some old pieces which the original Ramadas is alleged to have bequeathed to the world. To all this should be added (in the jail scene) a movement of tearing one’s hair; a crazy disposition of one’s arms and legs; and a vivid rolling of the eye which may denote the painful feeling caused by the insertion of a cork-screw into it, as well as any other feeling. Then you have a Ramadas who will be at once hailed by the audience as an ‘Abhinava Ramadas’. The transformation of the matter-of-fact Gopanna into a Ramadas, the gradual working out of that change, does not interest the audience. Nor do the pangs of sacrifice suffered by Ramadas in surrendering his boy or surrendering his freedom. It is not easy to portray the feelings of one who is ready to surrender his all and at the same time is burdened with the ignorance of a belief more in the efficacy of conventional worship, of a belief that God could be angry with human beings, and who like a child cries for a vision of God in flesh and blood. Who would care to look for such things in an actor! Ramadas was not a perfected Bhakta. He was placed in the Bhakti Marga by Kabir and was plodding onwards slowly, at times beset by harrowing doubts. The real Ramadas would be a stranger to our audience.

I have no hesitation in saying that words, verses, songs and certain conventional antics make up the histrionic art of the present day South Indian stage, whether it is Telugu, Canarese, or Tamil. Words and music have so far usurped our stage that our plays are slowly but surely degenerating into variety entertainments where the actors are bound to sing any song or do anything, whenever there is a call from the auditorium. It is pure fancy to call a present day South Indian performance a ‘Drama.’ The play is nothing but a novel put into dialogue form and the production is nothing but a Kalakshepam done by more than one Bhagavathar. It is a great pity that even our educated people, some of them reputed to be authorities on Art, are actually encouraging such performances.

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