A standing ovation that redefined the boundaries of time and euphoria refused to settle down. The audience clapped as if conducted on sheet music, resonating like hymns floating all across the auditorium, purifying every soul on either side of the stage. I felt like a feather, light. I took off and shored on the shoulders of the director. I whispered, “Gratitude for the mystical voyage!”
Director Ratan Thiyam never fails to leave his audience spellbound. Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken acquired a new grammar of style, language and expression in Thiyam’s Chorus Repertory production, staged last week in the city.
When We Dead Awaken highlights Ibsen’s signature carving of intensely-personal characters, straight from his own life. The protagonist of the play, Ibsen in disguise, lives in the restlessness of name and fame. Sculptor Arnold Rubek creates a masterpiece that makes him rich and famous, but leaves him discontent and trapped in a lonely and sterile personal life. He keeps recalling what all has he lost, including the woman who played his muse in his youthful endeavours. Rubek’s frustrated wife Maja keeps drawing deep fissure in their relationship. She is deeply pained by her husband as he keeps his muse alive in his memories, and complains against the presence of this other woman in their lives. She accuses him of not living up to his pre-marital promise to take her to a high mountain-top and show her the glory of the world. Maja decides to give up and leaves with a hunter, Ulfhejm, who promises to take her to the hill top. The vacuum thus created begins to resonate with the fulsome presence of Irena — the model of Rubek’s masterpiece, his real love, howsoever dead she may have been.
In Ashibagee Eshei, the Manipuri adaptation of the Ibsen’s three-act play, original scenes are picked up and interpolated without altering the storyline and disrupting the continuity. The play opens with sculptor Shaktam Lakpa and his wife, Shakhenbi talking and arguing about their incompatibility, with surreal sculptures and a large, looming gramophone dominating the set of the artist’s workshop. The conversation between Lakpa (played by R. Bhogen) and Shakhenbi (played by Sachi) showcased a symbiosis of choreography and words. Entry of Shaktam (played by Indira), swept the audiences off their feet. The stage set-up mesmerised as it transformed every time the act changed. Make-up, lighting and backdrops made Shaktam appear larger than life. Her presence painted the illusion of the other world she had remained hidden in for ages. She was the reincarnation of Maya in its full gaiety — a female human form with braided yet entwined expressions. Lakpa’s memories and desire to be with his inspiration awakened and he followed her to the mountaintop where an avalanche swept them away.
The communication between the master and the muse peeled off the deep layers of man-women relationship. Thiyam held his audiences’ fingers and helped them walk the rough edges of human emotions. The craftsmanship of Thiyam’s direction surprises one when he introduces elements such as vegetation, fish and even flying birds on the stage, all in sync with the theme and storyline at one end and the already present elements of the stage on the other. Ashibagee Eshei has not altered the original dialogues, but the unified architectural approach of its director morphs the barrier of language into the bridge across.