Theatre: Re-staging the blind era
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The poetry-drama ‘Andha Yug’ (1954) composed by noted litterateur Dharamveer Bharti has attained the status of a classic. The form in which Ibrahim Alkaji, then the director of the National School of Drama (NSD), presented the play in Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla in 1963 and again in 1974 on an open stage against the backdrop of the ruins of the Purana Qila, is a legend for Indian theatre. has been made. It has been staged hundreds of times by various directors in the last sixty years, but even today the colorists take it as a challenge.
Recently, it was staged by NSD Rangmandal under the direction of former NSD director Ram Gopal Bajaj. In this play inspired by Mahabharata, the last day of the war has been made the basis. Questions like faith, disbelief, death of God still churn the audience. The horrors of war, destruction, a sense of futility amidst victory and defeat has become the destiny of modern man. These lines of the play – ‘On the day that the blind age descended on the world / does not pass and keeps repeating’, as if it has been written aiming at our time. Are we not living the story of Mahabharata by watching and reading the Russia-Ukraine war through the media? Are we not cursed to suffer the judgment of royalty? Has humanity been able to learn any lesson from the First and Second World Wars? Are we not all part of the madness of Ashwatthama, who is burning with the fire of vengeance? The relevance of this play lies in these questions.
The blind king Dhritarashtra and the blindfolded Gandhari in the play are not myths, rather they represent the reality of the modern political system. The way two policemen make fun of the power in the play, it exposes the pain and tragedy of the common man. Ram Gopal Bajaj has conceived the stage with simplicity. He said in his statement that ‘I am trying to make it such a drama that it can be played easily in proscenium and all other places’.
Potshangbam Rita Devi in the role of Gandhari and Bikram Lepcha in the role of Ashwatthama were effective on the stage. In fact, there is enough space in this play for each character to act, be it the guard, the old beggar or the Yuyutsu. Sauti Chakraborty’s lighting scheme is noteworthy, but the music cannot be said to be effective. The play fails to add anything distinct to the color scheme. Our generation has not seen Alkaji’s plays, but we have seen Bajaj acting on stage and the plays directed by him. It was expected from a proven artist like Bajaj that he would have brought this classic drama in a new form. The question is why no innovative experiments are targeted in the presentation of this play? Why did this presentation fail to create anything new beyond Dharamveer Bharti’s creation?
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