14

Jul

I am against attempts at centralization of Theatre-Prasanna Heggodu

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Amitabh Srivastava

It was almost a touch and go situation for a reporter like me.

I heard from one of my theatre sources that the legendary theatre artist, trainer and activist Prasanna Heggodu was at the National School of Drama, taking classes and was about to leave by evening.

Called him up and fixed an appointment. It was urgent because I had heard he was not happy with the NSD for various reasons.

On a day Delhi was battling with rains and floods I was late by 15 minutes but managed to catch the man with the flowing beard whose style of ‘Method Acting’ has been so well expounded by actrs like late Irrfan Khan and Pankaj Tripathi.

He was in a rush so we just sat down on the stairs of NSD for a quick chat. That was not new. I have watched several performances at NSD sitting on the carpet.

Never one to mince words be it about his problems with Modi, or the NSD, Prasanna said at the very outset that he was very upset by the government was running the NSD.

It has been without a full time director for five years, he pointed out (since September 2018 my inside source confirmed).

I was in hurry so I provoked him by asking him, ”NSD has been teaching acting for so many years what new Natya Shastra are you teaching the students.”

And then he poured out his pent up emotions.

“The problem today is that the NSD is catering more to cinema and TV serials than to create good actors who can spread out to the villages and practice their

craft there so that people there get employment,” he said.

He has been talking about the contradictions in the theatre scene in India where the focus is on creating expensive sets and locations rather than on increasing the financial benefits to the actor and the playwright.

He has since the very beginning trying to make theatre a people’s theatre.

He does not just talk but walks the talk. When he directed he Uttara Ramayana the whole sequence was performed only on one Bench.

It is in this connection that his focus on Method Acting takes centre stage.

Here it is interesting co-incidence that he wrote his book titled,” Indian method in acting” exactly ten years back in 2013 and the first exposition of this kind of theatre was performed 100 years ago in 1923 in New York by the Moscow Art Theatre.

The first expounder of this method Konstantin Stanislavski who differentiated between the ‘art of experiencing’ from the ‘art of representation’.

Prasanna explains this style as a form of acting where the actor is ask to emote the emotions on stage through his own personal experiences rather than what the character is written out for him in the story.

“It is like ‘Catharsis’ which the oldest Greek Theatre writers called a “purgation of emotions”he explained further.

Prasanna is known to have led an agitation to creating NSDs in various states but that has still to happen.

“From the very beginning of my student days at NSD during the tenure of Ebrahim Alkazi I felt something was not right as all the focus was Delhi centred ” he shares.

Today it remains the same, its either Delhi based or Mumbai based whereas there are so much good theatre happening in various regional centres. In Karnataka where I am based there are at least 10 professional groups but the NSD does not like it, he rues.

And what are his grievances with Modi?

“This government is against the multi-cultural ethnicity of India. India has so much colour, so many languages and so many dialects. But Modi government believes in Centralisation-one religion, one language, one faith. I totally abhor this.” He says.

Taking this a step further he says,” This regime is against everything that is done by hands. Whether it is handicrafts, artisans or acting all involve the use of hands but we are turning people into machines.”

In an earlier he had said,” There are three kind of forces in the country. One is taking the people towards globalization, the right wing is taking he people backwards towards an imaginary golden past and the third is looking towards the villages but they are not heard at all. That’s is our tragedy.”

That sounds the best line to wind up this conversation.

Prasanna has promised to come back to Delhi again in August.

Hope we can catch up with him for a more relaxed talk.

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