Innovation in direction

Bansi Kaul paints face of an actor. Photo: Jamil Mahmud

Veteran Indian theatre director Bansi Kaul was in Dhaka recently. His troupe Rang Vidushak staged two plays -- “Saudagar” and “Sidhi dar Sidhi urf Tukke pe Tukka” -- at Theatre Art Unit's 20th anniversary celebration festival. Both plays were directed by Kaul. A brightly coloured stage, clownish costumes and painted faces of the performers in both plays aroused questions -- does the troupe give priority to colours? Is that why they call themselves “Rang Vidushak” (painted wise men, who pretend to be a buffoons)?
The sexagenarian director said that he was impressed to see the many forms of theatre in different corners of India during his job as a “travelling director” in the early 1970s, under a project run by National School of Drama (NSD). And from such impressions, he started to incorporate the form that his troupe follows nowadays. He took elements from folk and tribal traditions.
“We take ideas from tribal and agrarian communities and try to incorporate these elements in our plays. We do not follow the forms, rather we follow the energy and the philosophy to deal with things,” says Kaul.
After completing graduation from National School of Drama (NSD) in 1973, he travelled all over India, over the next 10 years. In 1981 he joined NSD as a professor and started a new department focusing on reaching out to people and giving them theatre lessons instead of inviting them to come to Delhi, where NSD is located.
“I would spend one month in a town and then shift to another. India is a big country and there are so many groups that everybody couldn't come to NSD. I advised them to start a department which would reach people at their homes,” says Kaul.
Kaul adds that it was a time when a group of eight to 10 directors felt India needed a new orientation in theatre. Besides him, this list of directors included legends such as Ratan Thiyam, Heisnam Kanhailal and Habib Tanvir.
“We decided to work on different aspects. I chose to work on street forms and non-theatrical forms. I tried to work with acrobatics and martial arts of central India,” he says.
They started to arrange a festival with the participation of local people and as a link in that arrangement they founded Rang Vidushak in 1984.
Both of the plays staged in Dhaka had a lot of acrobatics and non-theatrical gestures. Furthermore, there was space for laughter, which the troupe treats as another key element.
“The basic idea behind doing a funny performance is that we do believe laughter is not only for comedy; we believe it can be used as a tool of protest as well,” says Kaul.
Behind selecting such name for the troupe, Kaul said that their aim is to see the world through a fool's perspective. “Some see the world through a scientist's point of view. Some prefer a politician's perspective. Why don't we see the world through a fool's eyes?” -- he says.