As artists across all performance-oriented art forms face an unprecedented crisis, Sangeet Natak Akademi has quickly embraced digital means to engage artists and the audience. They have steered clear of the OTT model, but utilized regular platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Zoom. As for theatre, live opportunities are limited. Talks promise more. On May 22, the ongoing webinar series, Antarang, was inaugurated with the veteran director, Prasanna, presenting his ideas on ‘God as an Actor’ from Heggodu, Karnataka. With several hundreds registering for this Zoom meet and pouring anxieties in words, this reviewer, alongside the secretary and the deputy secretary of SNA, had a tough time moderating the session. More such webinars followed, more forms and maestros were included and more are on the anvil.
More significantly, the formidable SNA archives have been made available through regular broadcasts at 11 every morning. Thus, irrespective of our serious reservations for theatre in a digital form, a treasure trove has been unearthed. It began with the broadcast of Adhe Adhure, Padatik’s production of this Mohan Rakesh gem in Hindi that Shyamanand Jalan directed. Considering the collaborative approach that Rakesh and Jalan undertook back in the 1960s, and the high standards of the 1983 revival of the production, this was a momentous occasion for those who never got to experience it. The recording is good enough. Jalan’s handling of the psychological space was so deft, and his virtuosity as an actor shone so bright during the streaming, that recent adaptations of the same, including an ambitious enterprise for an OTT platform, looked pedestrian. Habib Tanvir’s Urdu masterpiece, Agra Bazaar, was streamed on June 3. Naya Theatre’s dream run throughout the 1980s was reiterated. Seen in retrospect, Tanvir’s ability to animate the performance arena with indigenous means and man scores of actors simultaneously left a lasting impression.
Allied forms like puppetry are also being showcased. Watching Doll’s Theatre’s Taming of the Wild (directed by Sudip Gupta) under the ‘Sankalp Parva’ series was therapeutic after a catastrophic Amphan experience. Some remarkable documentaries produced by SNA have been streamed so far. Mani Madhava Chakyar was featured in a Master at Work streaming that K.N. Panikkar directed in 1993. It was an eye-opener for many. Maa Annapurna Devi: Maun Sadhika Ke Swar was presented on World Music Day. With the outgoing SNA chairman, Shekhar Sen, interviewing the octogenarian maestro of the Senia-Maihar gharana a few years before her death, it spoke volumes about the guru-shishya parampara in our tradition.
From his familiarity with the SNA archives, this reviewer knows that all the recordings have been systematically documented. As theatre is located in a specific time, place and context, one’s appreciation of such archival materials will be enhanced if such recording details are supplemented by a brief scholarly introduction before each broadcast. As for the choice of materials, I could make out that both the Adhe Adhure and Agra Bazaar streamings were sourced from the Nehru Shatabdi Natya Samaroh (September 1-19, 1989) that SNA organized at Kamani Auditorium. This festival showcased some representative proscenium productions of the post-Independence period, including Andha Yug, Kallol, Guinea Pig, Hayavadana, Jokumaraswami, Uddhwasta Dharmashala, Chakravyuha, Wada Chirebandi, not to mention K.N. Panikkar’s masterly reorientation of Bhasa’s Urubhangam. One sincerely prays for a digital action replay. With the recent, more holistically structured Natya Samagama (Rabindra Bhavan Complex, January 9-17, 2016) recordings at arm’s length, SNA seems poised to make this crisis management initiative an opportunity to reach out to people and places it had hitherto failed to cater to.
