Salute to badal’s craziness

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The world of theatre is mourning the loss of Badal sircar, a man known as the father of abstract theatre of India. Badal Da introduced the concept of “third theatre” to the subcontinent. In tribute to the legend, Kolkata-based theatre personalities share their thoughts with us.
Badalda’s demise has left behind a void which is not easy to fill in. More than a rude shock to the world of theatre, it’s a huge loss and a big blow to the mind over matter.

He was a great revolutionary and an institution in himself. All his signature plays constitute an exemplary textbook for walking outside the given parameters and creating a style of its own. His huge body of inspirational works bears a grand testimony of his soul-searching and self-discovery. Having been influenced by other illustrious theatre helmsmen of foreign origin, especially the Polish thespian Jerzy Grotowski, Badalda’s enlightening workshops would be a learning experience in itself. I’m certainly impacted by his powerful works, like Raktakarabi, Michhil, Bhoma, Pagla Ghoda and so on. As a torchbearer of the “third theatre” form, Badalda with his recognised troupe Satabdi would uninhibitedly showcase his thought-provoking repertoire at Surendranath Park (then Curzon Park) in Kolkata on the weekends apart from the city’s culture-complex at Nandan theatre campus, the busy landmark of Lindsay street, the Loreto House school and many more such “unconfined wall-free” havens. As a matter-of-fact, I was spell-bound to watch an open-air interpretation of Tagore’s timeless classic Raktakarabi for the first time in my life. It was indeed a moving experience for me. Hypothetically, I presume, even Tagore would have liked such an innovative presentation of one of his much-celebrated gems.
Badalda’s sheer unorthodox approach inside a conservative cauldron of conventional thinkers sets his class apart and makes his profile stand out from his contemporaries. Hope his vision will be carried forth with the same spirit and vigour by his disciples whom he had mentored till he took his last breath. Albeit an architect of a progressive vision, Badalda during his active days in theatre as a “third theatre” proponent had to confront his staunchest critics and detractors who outrightly wrote off his new-age concept that inevitably added a new dimension to the performing-art spectrum. Meant for capturing the interests of humble masses at grass-roots without the ancillary frills of make-up, costumes, lighting, high-decibel sounds, props and most prominently a stage and a ticket-selling counter-window, this poor-man’s theatre became its own voice to catapult its strength to a larger expanse. With a live, interactive target-audience at its disposal, this mass-centric existential theatre held sway with its offbeat pieces. Acting as a catalyst to a smouldering theatrical movement, lying dormant till then, Badalda had uncorked an alternate avenue for the younger generations to lean on. His core concepts, the issue-driven plays, engaging workshops conducted at the NSD should be mandatorily introduced as a discipline in colleges and at varsity levels for higher education.
Badalda’s achievements as an accomplished theatre practitioner command a different kind of a respectability when weighed in the light of our current-day perspective. Where the young breed is constantly pushing the limits to broaden its space of performance and looking for every empty nook and corner to be utilised, there Badalda as a visionary had years ago blurred the demarcations of a theatrical rendition, by stepping outside the periphery of a proscenium format. Possibilities in a site-specific theatre are vast. To echo the title of his play Shesh Naai, there is certainly no end to it. A hired property is explored to the hilt at its optimum. But Badalda did away with any boundaries to take the audience into confidence and involve them into a participatory role with the plotline. Thus, the process became more tangible and correlatable. During my growing up years as a Hindi speaking actress, I occasionally delivered in the plays written by the master dramatist.
Yadi Ek Baar Phirse is a striking example. It’s a romantic comedy pegged on the peculiar human trait of always believing that the grass is greener on the other side. Of course, the more notable plays like Pagla Ghoda and Ebang Indrajit have been immensely inspiring to our generation.
Of his generation, he was one trailblazing Bengali dramatist and director who single-handedly experimented the most. As a result, his impact on the rest of India was huge. He did outlive the other stalwart thespians of Bengal’s group theatre like Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay, Shambhu Mitra and Utpal Dutt beyond the provincial borders. And dismantled the yardsticks of a “curtained” proscenium theatre by steering a new direction along the course. Neither did he cruise to the urban city-bred theatre nor did he lap up the rural jatra (folk-plays) form. He rather struck a congenial balance between the two and extracted the best of both worlds to foster another medium of expression called the “third theatre”.
I still clearly remember having watched his powerful play Spartacus at Kolkata’s Academy of Fine Arts and it seemed amusingly strange to learn that the spectators are supposed to sit on the floor in disjointed groups. Suddenly I could hear a growl of voices outside, speedily soaring to a crescendo. Then the slaves dashed into the room and collapsed all over us. I instinctively removed my feet as one slave fell on them. It was an immediate respond to a stimulating act I must recall.
I realised how effective such shock tactics could
be and consequently incorporated something of similar sort in my own productions.

Prima facie, Badal Sarkar’s stature in the post-Tagorean era could be considered the greatest among all. He stands tall as the loftiest pillar, you may say. He is the most widely interpreted and adapted playwright all over the length and breadth of India. The entire gamut of his illustrious titles is considered rich in content and belongs to an alternative movement of theatre. From the political-historical angle and also analysing the socio-economic aspects, Sarkar had realised that the proscenium format would come to a halting stop after a certain point. His logic was that it will cease to exist someday. But it can be argued that the “master of re-defining theatre” into a “third” kind was manifesting all his theories and manoeuvring the given space as a solitary individual as against the state and nation-backed proscenium theatrical format, which was more commercialised and entertaining in essence. Hence, if we account for theatre as a professional business-oriented platform, then as a director-producer, one has to contemplate on the recovery of production costs. Frankly speaking, the environs of a non-capitalist theatrical forum haven’t been able to witness success in terms of counting its economic value which is otherwise associated with the more popular mainstream stage-acts. One has to sell to survive after all. In this regard, Sarkar was undeniably a pathbreaker to think out of the box and conjure up a new model of theatre.