Of alcohol, addiction and women

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It is written in the Natyashastra that success in theatre which includes dance is of two kinds: the human and the divine.
Human success is when all the elements of abhinay or acting from the costume to the verbal and physical inputs are finely balanced with the content. When the emotions and feelings are expressed in a way in which they sound genuine and are also presented in an excellent style, when there is no noise, no disturbance and no calamity

and the hall is full then it is called divine success or “daivi siddhi”.
Adya Rangacharya, the famous Kannada playwright and translator of the Natyashastra, the seminal book on Indian dramaturgy attributed to Bharat Muni in the 4th century, writing about divine success says, ‘It is very rare and almost unconsciously achieved by an artist.’
An actor must have intelligence, strength, physical beauty, knowledge of time (tala) and tempo (laya) and of sentiments and emotions as their concern. Proper age, an ability to learn, remember and understand, to conquer stage fright and finally plenty of enthusiasm. These are some of the attributes of the ideal actor.
Bharat Muni also describes the ideal audience. The list of attributes to the nature of an ideal spectator include good character, quiet behaviour, should be expert in all languages and dialects, having practical knowledge of arts and crafts and of four kinds of abhinay and of rasas and bhavas and also rules of prosody and other shastras. This list suggests a critic a prasnik rather than a spectator!!
What the Natyashastra means about the audience crying with and laughing with the performer, is that the spectator should be “sahridaya” or one in heart with the performance. This is the basis of appreciation of a performance. The more you open your heart the greater the love you will give and receive. The same is true of your being one with the audience. When a spectator opens his/her heart to receive the offering does he truly receive. When his heart beats in unison with that of the performers only then can he experience the act.
Marta Carrasco’s performance at the Habitat centre was case of a “sahridya” audience if I ever experienced one! This well-known and severally honoured Catalan dancer has a large body of work from which she selected Aiguardent, that depicts a woman’s attempts to resist the desperate craving for alcohol.
The Asian premiere of Aiguardent was organised in Kathmandu by Crea, a body that works for marginalised women in South Asia: sex workers, disabled, single, young, lesbian, HIV positive, and migrated people from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, during their conference, shared with activists, artists, fimmakers, mediapersons, lawyers, writers and performers; an army to resist violence against women.
Since Marta was so close to Delhi, two performances were arranged at the IHC with the collaboration of Old World Culture. Aiguardent, says the blurb “depicts a woman’s intense attempts to resist her desperate craving for alcohol and finds a new path forward — a journey that elicits anger, passion, longing and loneliness.”
Marta is a beautiful dancer and a consummate actress. From the moment she took the stage she was the centre of the universe she inhabited for the 60 minutes she was present. Her fingers and hands coming to her mouth express her thirst with deep anguish. Sitting on a chair with wheels, Marta glides around the stage coming towards the bottle and glass placed on the table, and glances off at an angle.
In between these moves she entertains herself by dressing up in different clothes. Humour is never far behind in the act, whether combing her beautiful black mane or trying to walk in high heels. She wears a jump suit and tries to stick on uneven breasts on and then in a defiant gesture sticks a penis on too. She then jumps up on to the upright bed which is covered with a sticky substance. She sticks to it again and again. It is as if she is trying to go to sleep and sleep is eluding her. The table too has wheels so the movements are more complicated with Marta glidng with both, the bottle coming closer to her and then sliding away. Marta’s hands and fingers are extremely expressive perhaps more than any other part of her body. She uses her fingers to express her sorrow. Fingers run through hair in anguish. Hands grasp in mid-air. Fingers run over dry mouth.
The last section of the enactment was pure drama. Marta sits on the chair centre stage. She picks up the glass, drinks deeply. Then she pours some liquid on the table and sets it on fire. She swivels and slides round the stage with the raging fire. She returns centre stage when the fire goes out . Which takes quite a while. Then she goes and gets the rest of the bottles lying on the stage. She opens two at a time. Pours some into the glass some into her mouth and the rest on the table. It goes down her chin and the rest flows down her neck and on to her body and on the floor.
By the time the last two bottles are opened Marta is drenched. Slowly she slides down under the table. A few beats later she gets up and goes to the bottle hanging from the roof. After a bit of trouble she beats the cork out. Then she gets under the bottle with her mouth open for a few beats. She then stands and watches the liquid fall on the floor. A drenched woman stands on stage expressionlessly. Is this the last binge? Has she failed to give it up?
The performance came close to divine but something was missing. Was it the appearance of the performer that was seen as more dirty than unkempt? Or was it the inability of the actress to provide variety in her attempt to portray passion and anger; longing and loneliness were the primary sentiments. Nevertheless it was a very brave and extraordinary piece of dance theatre.