It was most unexpected: the Ramayana playing in Washington DC. The Constellation Theatre Company (winner of the 2009 Helen Hayes award for outstanding emerging theatre company) was playing at the Source Theatre on 14th street NW, a small intimate space hardly suitable for an epic like the Ramayana. And the version of the Ramayana the company had selected was by an Englishman, Peter Oswald. However, despite reservations on both counts, the evening proved quite diverting.
Unlike here, where there is hardly any debate on a play, the newspapers in the West encourage comments pro and against their own critic’s views. While going through some of these columns, I came across several reactions to the production. Some were rabidly against the play: like the blogger RZ, who opined that the play should be “banned” as it “desecrated” the “classic epic” and made a “mockery of the characters that are the bedrock of India’s cultural consciousness”. He “condemned” Oswald for not being faithful to the original. He further observed that Indians “across the globe faced hate and discrimination for their religious identity and Hindu beliefs” and are caricaturised as “cows, caste and curry”. While some Indians had a bone or two to pick with the play, many boasted of superior knowledge, most displayed pleasure at the idea of the Ramayana being played broad.
The Americans, on the other hand, were all full of praise. In fact, the person who recommended the play to me is a true theatre buff who liked the production, especially the energy of the actors. This was certainly true. The young actors of the company displayed tremendous energy, combined with infinite grace in movements. The Constellation Theatre had a long discussion on its blog which was addressed by both Indians and Americans, with the director Allison Stockman joining in with an avowal that the word “whore” — Rama is supposed to have called Kekayi a whore — is nowhere in the script and Bharat is the one who refers to his mother as “cunning’. Stockman had done her homework. The in-your-face space was cleverly used. The actors were close enough to touch, but the directorial design and the performance style distanced them and thus maintained their epic proportions. The blue body paint on the African-American actor Andreu Honeycutt drew attention to his divinity and his relationship with other avatars like Krishna.
The character of Hanuman was one of the best interpretations I have seen. Hanuman was a monkey and he was also human, less monkey than Sugreev the monkey king, but still a monkey. Their small masks — separate for male and females — long tail and speech, which was human but retained the simian quality, put this monkey army in another league. They deserved the extra time they received in the production for the sheer joy their exuberance gave us.
Joe Brack who played Hanuman had this to say: “American artists who hear these sacred texts and beloved tales from foreign lands are moved and motivated, in the only way we know how, from our souls.” On whether the company understood the Hindu Epic, he said: “I know what is there at the heart of this production is just that a heart. A genuine need to respect the Ramayana and its central messages of overcoming all great obstacles, no matter the cost, love for all beings, and a true devotion to what you hold most dear.” This is as good an interpretation of the epic as any.
Humour is never very far from the serious. When Hanuman is sent to get the sacred herb, the mountain he carries down is an actress wearing a mountainside-like dress. On meeting Rama, Sugreev jumps up in an embrace, with his legs wrapped around Rama, as he describes themselves as brothers: We have lost our kingdom, we have lost our wives and we are both living in banishment. The entire episode is amusing as conceived and enacted. In Lanka, too, there are moments of laughter.
Soorpnakha is not as funny as sad. Her viciousness in court and her attempts to seduce Rama and Laksmana are a highlight in the epic. There is a discrepancy in Oswald’s version. It is not the nose that is cut, but Soorpnakha’s ample breasts. Some found the suggestive and sexual gestures and dress vulgar. I did not notice any vulgarity in the production. I did not, however, appreciate the trite dances to show domestic bliss between Rama and Sita, and then a silly dance by the demons.
Ravana, with his slinky walk and three-headed turban, was more a Western seducer than a highly erudite and enlightened man who has lost his way into evil. The costumes were excellent, except perhaps Sita’s which was not flattering to the actress. That research had gone into the project was borne out by little-known aspects in the text: For instance, Hanuman’s extraordinary powers are revealed to him as he stands monkey-like on the shore before he flies to Lanka with Rama’s ring for Sita, or Sita’s interaction with Agni.
One of the most distinguished parts of the production was the live music created by a one-man band: Tom Teasley, a genius. His music with its peculiar oral sounds, like someone reciting a Kathak dance bol, regaled us as we entered the tiny auditorium. It is an extraordinary meld of the Western and the Indian. On a variety of drums, strings using unconventional instruments, like his tongue and palette of mouth, he creates some marvellous music. Teasley’s background score is an important and integral part of the Constellation Theatre Ramayana.