The Doorway

THE ACTOR AS TEXT

It would be premature to generalize or even call it a trend, to either herald or mourn the absence of the playtext in its classic form; but the fact of the matter remains that there is a sizeable number of plays visible at the festival that have not used a conventional playtext - with plot, character, scene division, etc - as the foundation on which their productions are built. Look at productions like THE DOORWAY and TILT (http://brm2010.blogspot.com/2010/01/tilt-and-doorway.html), for example, which prompted comments from the audience like "Is this even theatre?" and "What is this doing in a theatre festival?" respectively.

THE DOORWAY did away with the traditional playwright's script and turned to the actor for its text. Conceived and performed by Jyoti Dogra, here everything that is conventionally regarded as the actor's tools - the actor's body, movement, sound, speech, imagination, stream of consciousness - was converted into the text itself. The result was that what one would normally experience as part of the process of modern actor training was put in front of the audience as the product. And personally, sitting in the audience, I found the experience veering between the unnerving and the liberating, though occasionally slipping into the plain boring. Unnerving, because it blurred the lines between the performer as a person, as an actor, as a character - compartments that as performers we love to maintain so as to keep our precious little sanity intact. Liberating, because it dared to assume that what is essentially an actor's process could be crafted into a somewhat fixed product that would be of interest to a lay audience. And boring, because, for a performance that attempted to play with what is essentially the private inner life and creative process of the actor, it remained little more than an attempt, and a somewhat inhibited one at that. The experience of laying bare that the performance sought to achieve was clearly daring; but the act of total surrender on the part of the performer, of putting herself in a vulnerable position, of removing all safety nets - that was missing. As a result, the exploration into the actor as text didn't go very deep.

However, there were other interesting things at play in the production, viz the sets and the lights. While these are often treated as supplementary elements of design used simply to prop up or enhance the text, here in THE DOORWAY, in the absence of the classic playtext, one could see the potential of their roles beginning to change as well. While it would be reading too much into the production to call them co-actors of the performer on stage, yet it was clearly obvious that there were occasions when the performer was actually dialoguing with them in some form. Interestingly though, unlike the playtext that surrendered its primary function, they did not yield up their classic design function of defining the visual and spatial construction of the production, but rather, sought more roles to play in the text of the performance - whether consciously or not. For instance, it was amusing to note how some light cues were taken a fraction of a second earlier than would be expected, compelling the performer to engage with some areas of the space or to shift focus in her text.

- Scherazade Kaikobad

On the way....

I am curious to see the various kinds of plays in 12th Bharat rang Mahotsov.I decided myself to concentrate the path ways of acting where it emerged and influenced by seeing plays of festival.In opening day I saw "The Door Way" . It was performed and devised by Jyoti Dogra.While i was seeing the Play , it insisted me to memorise the Zar theatre (from Poland)Workshop's( Based on Grotowski Process) body impulse exercises which we undergone(2nd year) last semester. The human body sense the different impulses in different kind of spaces. The spaces in two mode . One physical space and psychological space. She used her voice as repetitive dialogue , noise , mourning to express hers spacial circumstances . By connection with the suggestive Door like iron rod, she created the images and also the spaces what she undergoing through her body in a empty space. But the harmony of voice and the spaces, images what she creating not connected in a powerful manner some times . Apart from that a question arose inside me "The behavioural mannerism of the impulsive body was imitation of Western mannerism or not?". After the ending of the show i read brochure and i knew her training under Grotowski discipline , then my question was going to answer myself " yea it was imitation ".I heard one of the audience of the same play " was it Indian or western style ". It was 7Th Jan state of mind of myself.
After seeing the Play Achin Gnayar Gatha (Bengali) directed by H.Kanhailal on 9Th January, the same question knock my door and again me on the way of searching the door way .This play also try to capture the essence of Kanhailal & sabitri method of physical language of lyrical instinct.Actors were expressed their level best but through the mannerism of artist i saw SabitriMa. "Why i spelt imitation in that two performance( The Door way & Achin Gnayar Gatha) ? Does my way of watching the play have a problem?" asked to H. Kanhailal . He answered me that every actor should imitate first what kind of style he undertakes then only he is able to create his/her own style.