Just the One

Oct. 30

I serve as guest faculty for the National School of Drama, Theatre-in-Education wing, Tripura. The main campus of the National School of Drama lives in Delhi. It is considered the premiere school for theatre training in India. The T-I-E wing (where I teach) is semi-supported be the main NSD and semi-supported by the local Northeast government. It was started about 9 years ago (oddly enough, around the time I visited India for my first Fulbright) by a couple of theatre and education women (who I have since worked for and with). NSD TIE accepts 20 students a year, artists and educators in their early twenties mostly who board at the school and take a range of classes and workshops about 12 hours a day over one year’s time. Many artists and others come and go over that year’s time, most staying for one or two weeks. Presently, I believe I am the longest visiting foreigner at NSD TIE, certainly the first Fulbright-Nehru fellow.

I write all of this as context for talking about a recent incident at the school. An accomplished actor spent his time here focused on Voice and Speech. I didn’t get to interact with him much, due to our differing schedules, but we got to chat a little one day as we traveled together in the school’s car. That’s when I found out he would be presenting a one man show of his, at the School, the following night. We chatted a bit about that, when I found out he’d been performing this show for 25 years and about 800 performances! I also learned that he was only a brief visitor to the School because he had to get back to filming for a TV show he appears in.

So we found ourselves in the prime School studio/classroom, a combination of current students, past students and a few visiting faculty. Fifty people maybe? He sat in a corner, on a little back cube perched on a platform, waiting patiently for the audience to assemble and focus. A few rickety lights pointed his way. He directed and encouraged the audience members where to sit as he drank a bit of water and some ran out to get him a little more. Outside the room, a couple of the students were creating a paper hat for him to use in the performance. It didn’t fit well, but he seemed to make the best of it.

With little fanfare, he began. As it was in Hindi, I understood very little, but the audience were deeply engaged, even cheering at one point. Vijay (the performer) moved very little, stood and sat a couple of times, but action seemed unnecessary given the power of his presence and relaxed, yet intense performance. During his performance one person stood a few times to adjust the air conditioning, and he engaged her in a short dialogue about that. Someone else had to leave the room and he noted that as well. He included several guest faculty (including me) in a toast that, apparently, his character delivered. At one point the two drummers got off tempo and he stopped, joked with them and restarted a couple of times.

What struck me most about this event was the informality and complete involvement on the part of the performer and audience. First, here was an apparently well-known actor of some stature presenting his one man show, for free, for a small audience in a small studio space. Yet that didn’t seem to affect in anyway the caliber of his performance or his deep engagement in the playing of it. His genuine, deep-felt generosity in sharing this with us was affecting. I mean, what would he gain from this presentation other than a handful of appreciative young people? He could be out making films and TV shows, increasing his fame and finances. The second thing that struck me was how relaxed the audience was about that very thing. They enjoyed the moment for the moment, less so for his fame or success. And he seemed to take that in stride.

Despite the fact that I didn’t understand the play, the performance and the event itself rank high in my experiences as an audience member. It’s hard for me to capture how relaxed and genuine the whole evening felt. A kind of purity of theatre enjoyment. For me, too often theatre productions feel to slick and sure of themselves, showing off as if expecting adulation, rather than being immersed in the sincerity of the moment. Too often, for me, theatre and artists try too hard to impress. And I believe audiences kind of expect it. It becomes more about spectacle then about art.

I am afraid I sound too judgmental, which I do not mean to be. I am awkwardly pining for the type of high artistry in an informal setting that this one man show captured. There was a kind of trust that evening, a trust that together, artist and audience were diving into a creative journey that would be a unique experience for both. Vijay had told me in the car that the show would be about 45 mins. It lasted just over an hour. He must have loved playing with that small, inviting audience. Maybe that’s the key to understanding why he performed for us that evening.