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The (Un) Popular Clown in Indian Theatre Nitika Gulati M.Phil. Scholar Jamia Millia Islamia New Delhi India Abstract Clowning in Indian theatre has not received deserved critical attention in scholarly academia. It has nonetheless remained a crucial element in the history of Indian drama. Contemporary Indian theatre artists are incorporating the Clown as a translated or derived figure, which still retains the mythic quality of the drama. The paper purports to examine two recently staged Indian English plays, Hamlet- The Prince Clown and Nothing Like Lear, adaptations of Shakespeare's popular plays Hamlet and King Lear respectively. The paper further traces briefly the representation of the Clown in the Natyashastra, and its entry point into the contemporary Indian drama. Theoretically, the paper also attempts to locate clowning in the Bakhtinian notion of heteroglossia that renders it postmodernity. Also, it becomes the carnivelesque space wherein an interface between reality and facades is possible. The clown figure in contemporary Indian theatre, then, is understood as a principle of necessity while it dramatizes the angst of the urban man. Keywords: clowning, Indian theatre, Shakespeare, performance, postmodern
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The clown is a character that has traveled across world theaters, India being one of them. C for Clowns (2009) was one of the first plays that made the clown tradition popular, or at least known, to the contemporary Indian audience. The clown is still fairly new to Indian audience, and still seeking popularity amongst them. Generally, the clown is understood to be a circus clown, meant to entertain children and evoke laughter. In spite of its association with the vulgar, this art form has gained attention from critics and scholars with its appearance in Indian theatre. The figure of the clown "carries with it the symbolic association of its usage in popular culture- rituals, festivities, street theatre, circus - and interacts with that art form. Literature, drama and art, forging and reflecting new consciousness; the figure of the clown mutates too, but it is always there- as far as any society needs or allows it to be there- providing the foil for shortcomings of dominant discourse or absurdities of human behavior." (Robb 1) This paper attempts to study the roots of clown in Indian theatrical tradition and its performative function in contemporary Indian theatre. It seeks to understand the role of clown on Indian stage as the protagonist as a means of subversion and catering an alternate reality to the audience. Clowning has certainly been a groundbreaking experience amidst the canonical and the popular, since it pertains to the margins. The character of the clown has been an omnipresent yet unnoticed entity in the tradition of Indian theatre. However, it certainly makes a political statement while it attempts to accommodate itself within the mainstream. The clown re-writes and re-tells reality from the perspective of the common man sitting in the audience. This paper particularly focuses on the recent clown plays Nothing Like Lear and Hamlet- The Prince Clown, adaptations of Shakespeare's King Lear and Hamlet respectively. The purpose of this paper will, thus, be to study not the Clown figure alone, also to witness the change from the canonical in England to popular in India; the clown being an emergent form in Indian theater attempts to popularize the canonical Shakespeare makes it a complicated discourse. Also, it will locate the Indian clown drama within Bakhtin's notion of the carnivalesque; in ways it becomes a laughable way of transgression and manipulation of identities. Evidently, the clown's performance relies on the mask they wear, thus, Bakhtin's heteroglossia i.e. multiplicity of meanings, here, identities, becomes a relevant question. This opens up debate on the clown figure as postmodern identity, delivering masked truths and manifesting contemporary realities. Mirth has been an integral part of the Indian folk theatre. It was the earlier Nata of the folk tradition who later was turned into the court jester, Vidusaka. Vidusaka is found in the Natyshastra, incorporated essentially to subvert the upper class ethos. The Vidusaka is an amiable character to
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the audiences not only because he produced laughter but he was a common man, one amongst the audience. The Vidusaka caters to the imagination of the audiences by quickly hopping from past to present, and vice versa. At times, he also takes up the role of the Sutradhaar, binding narrative with his quick-wit and poignant humor. Like the clown figure, the Vidusaka is a mutable character, changing identities with costumes; his character, therefore, is fluid. (Varadpande 11-12) This changeling identity becomes a powerful metaphor that renders him the authority to challenge the dominant. This leads us to the argument that the clown figure has been present throughout the theatrical history in India. However, it is the revival of the clown as the protagonist in the Indian theatre that makes us re-consider the needs of the new age theatre. Plays like Nothing Like Lear and Hamlet- The Clown Prince problematize the canonical English literature by weaving it within madness and gibberish within an Asian context. What makes the clown a complex character is their ability to maneuver the audience, delivering a false reality while informing this reality is false. As aptly titled, Nothing Like Lear by Rajat Kapoor centers around King Lear, with a twist of modern (ness) and contemporary situations; the title seems apt as it foregrounds one of the major themes of the play, i.e. nothingness. It is a long monologic, one-man show that engages the audience for eighty minutes with literally gibberish and pure nonsense. In many ways, the play uses nonsense as a powerful means to evoke meaning; it leaves the audiences to fill gaps and interpret nonsense in their own ways. The clown takes the audience to a journey of his stream of consciousness; denying reality and yet buying confidence of the viewers. The one man show is the space wherein his identity is proliferating with broken series of anecdotes clubbed together like a puzzle. In one moment, he is Edmond, in another, the fool or the servant, the actor keeps switching identities, making it a drama of nihilism of self. This kind of carnivelesque journey renders a free-flow of expressions and emotions; in a Bakhtinian way, anything becomes sanctioned and meaningful within the carnival. It is not the loss of Shakesperean pathos that one witnesses in Nothing like Lear, but developing a tragedy by opening up contemporary debates in a comic fashion, at the same time relying on the plot of old Lear. Clowning changes the rhetoric of a cathartic experience as it piques the audience emotionally as well as mentally. Hamlet- The Clown Prince justifies the clown act, makes it a cathartic experience for the viewers. It borrows the Shakesperean Hamlet plot, clownizes the tragedy; re-invents not only the plot, but the entire genre. Rajat Kapoor says in an interview, the reason why he chose clowns to articulate a tragedy is for they are simpletons and act as crucial agents of Truth. Soso, the protagonist (played by Atul Kumar) opens up the play with intense darkness, much in a
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Chaplinesque way, offers the pathos of a tragedy and the tickling of a comedy. The speeches in the play are mostly gibberish accompanied with English, to barely make references to the Shakesperean tragedy. The clown's speech echoes the 'senseless' Lucky's speech in Beckett's Waiting for Godot; the notion of the carnival that the clown entails is thereby interspersed with moments of existentialism. The clown's identity is constantly changeable, thus, gibberish makes complete sense in the carnivelesque play. This brings forth the performative function that a clown deliberates; i.e. performativity has philosophical connotations that entails the potential of language. (Bial 175) The clown has been deliberately fitted amidst the tragic action in order to convey the seriousness of the clown character. The seriousness gets diluted within the chaos of falsity offered by the clowns. The play is read as a parody of the canonical tragedy as it equates the horrendous tragedy with gags, dumb charades and petty fights. Like Rajat Kapoor gives these tragedies a 'serious' dimension, clowning is accommodated by directors like Joy Fernandes, Ashwath Bhatt, Atul Kumar and others lately in theatre. Clowning becomes relevant in the 21st century contemporary India since it represents the angst of the Indian middle class who comprises most of its audience. Also, with the revival of classic Shakesperean tragedies through clowning within an Indian context makes a globalized, inter-cultural commentary on the modern times in India. Though Shakespeare has an age old connection with Indian theatre. It was the Parsi theatre of Bombay that was instrumental in popularizing the indigenous Shakespeare all over the country. Later, with growing literacy and the spread of English, many translations of various Shakespearean plays came into existence. Along with translations, Shakespeare has thoroughly been indigenized by making it Sanskritized. (Trivedi 15) Thus, the adaptation of Shakespeare in Indian theatre is historically as well as culturally warranted. In the modern age, the bond has strengthened in the wake of the humdrumness of the advanced lifestyles. Also, this adaptation in particular represents the hybridity as well as the existentialism that is, essentially, a universal condition. The clown must not be simply pushed to the realms of the carnival, it serves as a unifying principle across time and space. The clown works as a heteroglossic figure, their gibberish thus inevitably produces truth known to itself. The clown (that operates within the carnival) needs to be read as performative heteroglossia rather than structural or textual heteroglossia, as it seeks to work outside the textual. (Hiebbert 114) In the context of clowns, Bakhtin's heteroglossia can be read as becoming different identities on different occasions; the clown's character is thus inclusive. This heteroglossic characteristic of clowning however, has made the clown the 'other' in the eyes of its audience.
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Therefore, the moment we see a clown as the protagonist, especially on an Indian stage, the audience transitorily believes in them but refuses any relation with the clown. The clown is an unpopular form of theatre, it has always remained on the margins. Nonetheless, the clown has become a significant hero or heroine while they ignite emotions in their audience. "Clown makes an ideal protagonist of twentieth-century theater because theatrical modernism was preoccupied with breaking the expectations of older genre systems and exposing the mechanism of art-making." (McManus 11) It is in the light of this statement that clowning becomes a necessary element of theatrical forms. The clown is not merely to laugh at or laugh with, rather 'the carnival laughs seriously'. Clowning could also be understood as anti-popular since it attempts to break- through the traditionalism; it works against the grain. It is this staunch rebellion that makes clowning a festival to be celebrated; as a festival of subversion, gifting moments of relief and introspection.
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Bibliography Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Indiana University Press: Bloomington.1984. Print. Beckett, Samuel. Waiting For Godot. Vintage: London, 2009. Print. Hamlet- The Prince Clown. By Rajat Kapoor. Dir. by Rajat Kapoor. Perf. Atul Kumar, Kalki Koechlin, Sujay Saple, Neil Bhoopalama, Namit Das and Puja Sarup. Kamani Auditoriun, Delhi. 7 Sept. 2013. Performance. Hiebert, Ted. "Becoming Carnival: Performing a Postmodern Identity”. Taylor and Francis Online. Web. India's Shakespeare: Translation, Interpretation and Performance. Ed. Poonam Trivedi and Dennis Bartholomeusz. Dorling Kindersley: India, 2006. Print. McManus, Donald. No Kidding!: Clown as protagonist in Twentieth Century Theatre. Cranbury: Rosemont Publishing and Printing Press, 2003. Print. Nothing Like Lear. By Rajat Kapoor. Dir. by Rajat Kapoor. Perf. Atul Kumar. Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai. 12 Feb. 2012. Performance. Robb, David. Clowns, Fools and Picaros: Popular Forms in Theatre, Fiction and Film. New York:Amsterdam, 2007. Print. The Performance Reader. Ed. Henry Bial. Routledge: USA and Canada, 2004. Print. Varadpande, Manohar Laxman. History of Indian Theatre, Volume 2. India: Abhinav Publications, 1992. Print.
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