Dramatic and Social Background of Henrik Ibsen and Vijay Tendulkar

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Dramatic and Social 2 Background of Henrik Ibsen and Vijay Tendulkar

2.1 Henrik Ibsen

2.1.1 Biographical background of Ibsen

The life span of Henrik Ibsen is from 1828 to 1906. He was born on 20 March 1828 in a small shipping town, Skien, in Norway and he died on 23 May 1906. This period is considered as the most signiﬁcant period in the history of Norway. The time till 1905, when Norway became an independent state, was full of political upheaval and people were struggling to free Norway from the hands of Danish rule. Aniruddha Kulkarni comments in his biographical book in Ibsen-

This freedom ﬁght and the economical and social developments were inter depend- able. The pre independence period was noted for the hierarchical structure of the society. The society was divided between the rich and the poor. The upper class was known as ‘Embetclass’ which comprised of the people belonging to the various professions such as the military, the court, the professors from the University and other high professions such as the authorities of the Church and the government ofﬁcers. And the others were workers and farmers who had to suffer a lot for mere living. The situation was in transition when Ibsen started writing during the 1850 (referred and translated from Kulkarni, 1992:03).

Because of Norway -Sweden republic was changing Norway, there was a tremendous growth of industrialization. The railways, ships and roads developed for better transportation and communication. The post and the telegraph too helped people to have fast interaction. The commercial ships became the asset for Norway. As a result of all the transitions during this period, there was a rise of the Norway –Sweden state. There was no slavery in Norway, but the condition of the workers and the farmers was worse. Ibsen fully sympathized with them and supported to the revolution headed by Markus Tehran. Unfortunately, it was not successful yet it gave ample thought for Ibsen’s writings. He wrote The

30 League of the Youth on this background. Later the internal conﬂicts in Norway during the period of 1880 strongly represent the background of the plays like Ghosts, The Enemy of the People and Rosemer’s Holm.

Political background

By 1882, the democracy was established in Norway and again the social conditions changed a lot. There were two main political parties named ‘Conservative’ and ‘Liberal’. This situation was helpful to the middle class society and sup- portive to the Democracy as well. But in general the situation was not within control and therefore the social and political problems could not get way out as it needed to be. It gave rise to the duo state of Norway-Sweden.

Literary background

In the beginning of the 19th century, the field of literature was much barren in Norway. The environment was not very nourishing for literature. In the early 19th century, when the Norway, Sweden became republic, the literate people strongly wanted to have a literate theatre of their own. As a result, there was the first commercial theatre in Norway in 1827. Most of the plays were Danish or at the most trans-creations of the European plays. Henrik Arnold Thaulow Wergeland is considered as the first known creative writer who wrote poetry, drama, history and also political writings. Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven was a poet of that period. Ibsen was much influenced by Welhaven. The famous philosopher Soren Kierkegaard is considered the father of the philosophical movement called existentialism. Ibsen got influenced by his thought too. He agreed to Kierkegaard’s thought that too much respect for tradition and past spoils the present. Romanticism takes us away from the factual knowledge of the stark realities. Ibsen follows the concept existentialism in some of his plays like Brand and Ghosts. Camilla Collett was a great author and the feminist writer in Norway, in the late 19th century. She wrote about the place of women in the society in those times. She tried to give words to the injustice done to women by male chauvinist society. Ibsen got influenced by her writing and the clear reflection of it is seen in his ‘Love’s comedy’ and ‘A doll’s House’. He was also influenced by his mother-in-law Magdalene Thoreson,

2.1 Henrik Ibsen 31 who was the leader of the Feminist movement. After the mid 19th century, the Dano- German war brought modernism in the ﬁeld of literature. This incident is described as modern break through’. Danish thinker George Brandis was much inﬂuenced by the positivism in France, the utilitarian theory of the Mill, the criticism of the Bible done by Foir Bach, and the woman liberation movement. The period after 1870 is considered as the golden period of literature in Norway. Bergson became famous in Europe and Henrik Ibsen got worldwide fame as a modern dramatist. He criticised common, middle class issues like complexities in relationships, forced marriages and its repercussions, the constraints of social norms, etc.

Ibsen’s journey as a dramatist

Ibsen was a central figure in the modern breakthrough in the intellectual life of Europe, and is considered the father of modern drama. With many changes in his personal and social lives Ibsen’s journey as a dramatist took various modes at various stages. Ibsen’s career as a dramatist spans a period of fifty years. His first play. Catilina published in 1850, and his last play ‘When we dead awaken’ in 1899. His creative period, thus, covers the second half of the 19th century. During this long period, he wrote 25 plays. His journey is characterized by various phases of his artistic development. These changes are clearly reflected in his plays and they can be divided into following categories.

1. Nationalistic plays

2. Poetic plays

3. Modern. Realistic problem plays or the drama of ideas.

4. Psychological or humanistic plays

5. Metaphysical, spiritual or ‘visionary’ plays.

The ﬁrst phase includes nine plays from Catilina to The Pretenders written before his departure from Norway. He wanted to build up a national theatre during this time. Most of these plays deal with national history, folklore, legends and aim at the glorious past. In the second phase as H. Koht observes

2.1 Henrik Ibsen 32 It is very evident that Ibsen follows the fashion and demand of his times and not a demand within himself (Koht, 1931: 65).

He wrote plays in the traditional verse form. Ibsen’s real work as a dramatist begins only after he left Norway. His career as an author before Norway was of struggles and later he got success and become world famous. His dramatic art followed the fashion and the demand of the society and he created plays which he had in mind without anybody’s pressure. He was working in Bergen for the National theatre, but the state of theatre was too weak for him to ﬂourish as a playwright and he left it and went to Norway. M.C. Bradbrook remarks–

Ibsen did not become a great dramatist until he broke away from the stage in Bergen (Bradbrook, 1966:27).

Brand and Peer Gynt were poetic in form, but stood as a class by themselves. They were written in verse, but were built on fantasy and imagination. Brand is a story of a fanatic and Peer Gynt relates a tale of a bold libertine. The third phase of Ibsen’s writing made him famous and earned him the title of the ‘Father of the modern drama’ as (Gassner says, 1953 :354). It was during this period, which extends from The League of Youth to An Enemy of People he wrote the plays which were described as social, realistic or problem plays. In this phase Ibsen describes the stark realities of the world around him. He takes up contemporary social problems as the subjects of these plays and submits them to a radical revolution. In these plays, as G.B.Shaw puts it-

The problems of conduct and character of the personal importance to the audience are raised and suggestively discussed.... Unless Woman repudiates her womanliness, her duty to her husband, to her children, to society, to the law, and to everyone, but herself, she cannot emancipate herself (Shaw G.B./1913:37).

They were attacks on the moral values and the social norms. In them Ibsen appears in the role of a social reformer. In the next phase, Ibsen wrote psychological and humanistic plays. He has become contemplative about the past of his life. He becomes serious to present the struggle in a reﬂective tone. Most of these plays end on a dark note. The ﬁrst play written after his return to Norway was The Master Builder. This phase includes Rosmersholm (1886), The Lady from the Sea (1888) and Hedda Gabler(1890). In these plays he turned from society to the individual questions. Ethical views give way to psychological

2.1 Henrik Ibsen 33 questioning. These plays are the study of the human mind. Hedda Gabler is the psychological study of a destructive woman. In Rosmersholm, an idealist loses interest in reforming society. He uses myths and symbols in these plays. The last four plays, which were written after his return to Norway, constitute the last phase of his dramatic writing. They are as J. Larvin puts–

Partly tragic monographs of individual conscience and partly confessions of author himself’ (Larvin Janko, 1950: 12).

Ibsen moves away from the realm of the individual psyche to that of individual conscience. He focuses his attention to the inner self. His journey of literature is much inﬂuenced by the personal and social events in his life. In 1862, he was exiled to Italy, where he wrote the tragedy Brand. In 1868, he moved to Germany, where he wrote one of his most famous works, A Doll’s House. This play really brought a tremendous fame to Ibsen for its controversial contemporary subject. Nora’s struggle with the traditional roles of wife and mother and her own need for self exploration became a talk of the town. Not only women but also men became aware of this new idea of self esteem of a woman. It was something against the accepted social practices of the time. In 1881 his another play, Ghosts stirred up greater controversy than A Doll’s House throughout Europe. Ibsen dared to write on the topics such as incest and venereal disease. This play also made the audience contemplate on the role of woman at home. It brought up an issue whether a woman should follow the dutiful roles as a daughter, wife and a mother or she should discover her own points of strength and create an independent place in society irrespective of the traditional norms. In 1890, he moved back to Germany and wrote Hedda Gabler, creating one of the most talked of characters. Hedda is a general’s daughter. She had married a scholar man whom she dislikes totally, yet she destroys a former love who stands in her husband’s way academically. By 1891, he returned to Norway as the literary hero. He wrote When We Dead Awaken, in 1899. It was his last play. William Archer translated his A Doll’s House into English for the ﬁrst time, and Ibsen entered into English literature through translations.

Throughout his journey, one aspect is prominent that he did many experiments with the presentation of social themes on the stage. Ibsen deals with the contemporary social issues such as the position of women in the society (A Doll’s House), the taboo subjects like venereal disease and incest (Ghosts), the hypocrisy of middle class gentility(Pillars of the Society), community’s incapacity

2.1 Henrik Ibsen 34 to face the truth (An Enemy of the People). Thus he took up the questions affecting the lives of the middle class, ordinary men and women and submitted them to debate. Shaw states-

Shakespeare had put ourselves on the stage, but not our situations. Our uncles seldom murder our fathers, and cannot legally marry our mothers; we do not meet witches; our kings are not as a rule stabbed and succeeded by their stabbers; and when we raise money by bills we do not promise to pay pounds of our ﬂesh. Ibsen supplies the want left by Shakespeare. He gives us not only ourselves, but ourselves in our own situations. The things that happen to the stage ﬁgures are things that happen to us’ (Shaw G.B, 1913:144).

Thus his plays are neither romantic nor classical, but they are an excellent combination of both. They may be termed as the best modern plays. Among his social plays are included The League of Youth,(1889), Pillars of Society (1877), A Doll’s House (1879), Ghosts (1881) and An Enemy of the People (1882). They proved the most inﬂuential plays of Ibsen and established him as the great social reformer and moral teacher. Eric Bently writes-

This is the Ibsen that scandalized Europe, the Ibsen that chimed with the Zolaist temper of the younger generation, the Ibsen of the avant-garde theatres of the nineties, the Ibsen in a word, of Ibsenism, championed by Bernard Shaw for its positive values in the Quintessence of Ibsenism (Bentley 1955: 92).

The pre-Ibsenite playwrights such as Dumas, Augier was to defend the middle class interests and morals. The ideas introduced in their plays were conventional ones. Ibsen for the first time turned the social drama into the drama of ideas. He questioned the established ideals, beliefs and opinions which governed the life of his society. G.B. Shaw has stated about the drama that a conflict has to be there in the play. It may arise through attachments, rapacity, generosities, resentments, ambitions, misunderstandings, oddities and so forth as to which no moral question is raised. The peculiarity of Ibsen’s theatre repertoire is that he has never offered clear cut solutions or remedies to the problems or the evils he highlights in his plays. There are no fixed ends to the plays. The plays written in prose were contrary to the earlier dramatic tradition, in the subplots of the theme and absence of a villain.

Ibsen as an individual was truly rationalistic. He was against the blind beliefs comprising of the ghosts, spirits, witches which were followed in Norway as it was in other corners of the world. ‘Trolls’ is a Norwegian word for blind

2.1 Henrik Ibsen 35 beliefs. Ibsen did not confine himself to the outward meaning of the word, but he went beyond that. For him, trolls are the discontented desires, the rituals, misunderstandings and misconceptions of morality. He was of the opinion that as the illiterate old society was scared of the ghostly things, the so called literate society and its people are confined to the fears of these unfulfilled aspects of their lives. He fought against these trolls through his writings. He has written the following lines to his friend Michel Meyer, at the time of publishing the play Peer Gynt before the performance. Ibsen wrote in the letter

Every man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs. That is why I once inscribed in a copy of one of my books as the following dedicatory lines: To live is to war With trolls in heart and soul To write is to sit In judgement of oneself (Ibsen Norman Rhodes/1945:105).

For Ibsen, life was a struggle at various levels. With these thoughts in his mind, he created many characters in his plays that fought against the established norms in the society, against the time that denied the opportunities for self enhancement. He treated them as the unfulfilled desires, excessive cravings at the subconscious level of mind. Troll is described as a demon. It is an evil incarnation. Ibsen convinces that the presence of this evil in people is more hideous than the imaginary idea of a troll. Ibsen never believed in the physical existence of a troll, but he found the concept very fascinating as it affects the minds of the people to a great extent. He has used this Norwegian concept in his plays in a peculiar manner. He chooses to concentrate more on the fight for freedom and less on its implication of actually being free. Even today we see the existence of such trolls in the society. The fight against it still continues. The names change, the shapes change, but the crux of the idea remains the same.

2.1.2 Ibsen’s feminist attitude:

Henrik Ibsen’s name is also attached to the woman liberation movement, though he was never a part of it. The character of Nora has become a symbol of woman’s freedom and is still thought of even today. Ibsen had created another such character, Ellida in A Lady from the Sea. Both these women create everlasting impressions in the minds of the readers. Both the characters want freedom somewhere in the corner of their hearts, though they never overtly express it.

2.1 Henrik Ibsen 36 At the proper time Nora gives back the keys of the house and decides to leave the home, husband, children and the secured life while Ellida realizes that she is so used to stay with a secured life style that in spite of giving her full freedom of choice, she denies it accepting that she no more can live an adventurous life as before. She happily chooses to be a homemaker. These stories reﬂect the real living facts which are seen even today. We have Noras in the society around us, who challenge the institutions like religion, law and by breaking the ties of marriage she leaves her home in search of the self. Ellida fails to have free will of her own. She has to depend on her husband who offers her free will to choose one husband between the two. But once she owns the free will, she becomes strong and willingly chooses the life which she thought to have forced upon her. Ibsen states-

Women have been denied the opportunity for self- fulﬁllment.’ And questions these women of the modern age, mistreated as daughters, as sisters, as wives not educated in accordance with their talents, debarred from following their real mission, deprived of their inheritance, embittered in mind- these are the ones who supply the mothers of the next generation. What will result from this? (Henrik Ibsen, 1994: IX).

Ibsen regards it as the modern tragedy. He asserts that there are two types of principles and the ethics which distinguish between a man and a woman. They fail to understand each other at some level, but ridiculously in the practical way of life they are judged by the same rules and regulations. Ibsen’s notes are self explanatory in this regard. He wrote-

A woman cannot be herself in contemporary society; it is an exclusively male dominated society, with laws drafted by men and with counsel and judges who judge feminine conduct from the male point of view’ (Ibsen, 1994 :VIII).

Ibsen presents a variety of women characters in his plays. The situations differ, the personalities differ and the environment and speciﬁcally the particular time remains the major factor in a particular decision making. Ibsen takes all these factors into consideration when he presents his thought and philosophy through these characters. He also throws light on the traditional way of marriages and the institution of marriage thereby. In a male dominated society, girls have to give their consent under stress pressure. They are mere adjustments and such marriages never be real unions of souls and minds. It may lead to frustration and depression. It is a self pity to get oneself sold in the market called marriage.

2.1 Henrik Ibsen 37 Ibsen has concretely discussed these views in his plays. Right from his initial play ’Love’s Comedy’ this thought is presented sweepingly but later in The Lady from the Sea it is boldly exposed. The characters in the play are the mouthpieces of Ibsen, and they discuss various aspects of marriage through dialogues.

Ibsen has written a few plays in support of the woman liberation movement. Ibsen’ writings always had a base in his biographical details. He never wrote plays based on some abstract ideas. The woman protagonists of the Doll’s House and A Lady from the Sea were real women in his life who were the fans and authors of the woman liberation movement. The ﬁrst is Laura Kieler who was a fan and friend of Ibsen. Ibsen always encouraged her to write. The character of Nora is based on her who had tried to do forgery in a bank and their marriage was almost on the brink of breaking. Another character Ellida is drawn on Magdalene Thoresen, his mother-in law. Her romanticism, her liking for the sea, her desire to be a part of the adventurous life on the sea are the real details taken to weave the story of Ellida. She too was a supporter of the feminist movement.

In 1791, the book Proclamation of the Rights of Women was published, a French feminist activist Olympe de Gong es in response to a book. Proclamation of the rights of man, which is considered as the fundamental document of the french revolution. Immediately in 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women was published. It was only the beginning of the feminist thought. Ibsen never actively supported this movement, but created characters in his plays to reach out these thoughts to the society at large. He shows the duality between the option of looking after a home and a family and living independently with self esteem. He may want to suggest that if a girl wants to pursue her own career, she better not marry. It should be her own choice as to when and whom to marry. This thought was accepted in European countries after the second World War. Simon De Beauvoir was a representative of this way of thinking. As a reaction to this there was also a stream of thought where girls believed that home and family are the real duties of a woman. Nature is more important than society. His thinking led thousands of women to ignore the career and jobs and got married at the young age of 15 and 16. This is known as Feminine Mystique. Ibsen’s Nora strongly advocates that a woman is not merely a creature for progeny, but she has to have the sense of self realization.

2.1 Henrik Ibsen 38 2.1.3 Henrik Ibsen and inﬂuence of women in his life

Henrik Ibsen is recognized as a dramatist who has created lively and fascinating woman characters. All women would love to read and watch these characters in those days. For this reason Ibsen was the most favorite dramatist of many women. Ann Sharlote Leﬂler, a woman novelist of that period said-

All women have fallen in love for Ibsen (Templeton, 1997: 350).

Even today, these women characters have not become outdated and are still discussed, thought over and loved by present women readers. His biographical facts would help us to understand the women in his life, who inﬂuenced him drawing such beautiful and strong characters. Michael Meyer describes–

The first lady was his mother, Marichen. She was a beautiful lady and was fond of fine arts. She loved paintings and liked dramatics. Ibsen was working in a medical shop and by earning money tried to learn in a University. Ibsen fell in love with a maid servant named Sophie of 28. Unfortunately, she had to run away to hide the fact that she became a mother with a child from Ibsen. He had to support her with money for next 12 years. After this he came into contact with Clara Abel. She was an orthodox and a believer in God. She did not like Ibsen’s atheist views. Camilla Collett, Laura Killer, and Ann Sarlotte Lefller were three women writers and of modern thinking. Ibsen was very friendly with them and he discussed many contemporary issues with them. He married to Suzan Thureson. She was very fond of literature and drama in particular. (Meyer M., /1971: 610).

In 1876, Asta Hansteen, the feminist started the movement in Norway. By that time the social conditions of women had become very gravely problematic. Asta became the mouthpiece of these woman issues and she gave lectures publicly. She criticised the hypocrite and the selfish male chauvinist attitude. On this background Ibsen created Luna Hestel of The pillars of Society. He made the audience aware of the social status of women. He made people think whether women are there only to sacrifice their lives for men or to make a choice between the truth and freedom. He put forward a thought if women should confine themselves to the traditional roles imposed upon them by society and to lead a frustrated life or dare to explore new directions of their lives. He showed the dream of freedom to women readers, which has not become outdated even today. There are some undercurrents where he shows women are willing to change the existing social system where males have dominated them. His honest views make the women characters full of life, true to life and ideal.

2.1 Henrik Ibsen 39 Ibsen changed the conventional style of writing plays. Entertainment and amusement were not the objectives of his plays. On the contrary, his plays were intended to arouse and awaken the audience to the realities. They appealed to the intellect rather than the emotions and lay their emphasis more on character- ization than plot. Every spectator observed the action keenly and introspected. The plays helped the audience to understand self and the society. The structure of Ibsen’s plays resembles Greek drama more than Shakespearean or ‘well made’ plays. Like the Greek playwrights, Ibsen uses the retrospective method by which a situation is developed rather than a story told. His plays open just before the catastrophe and the preceding events are recalled rather than represented on the stage. Ibsen’s plays are notable for their aesthetic appeal. His messages given through his dialogues, his characters make the audience and the readers understand the life in the best sense. Any reader/audience can relate to the world Ibsen creates in his plays. The day to day routine and incidents reveal a thought in an extraordinary manner. Ibsen is one of the greatest dramatists, the world has ever produced.

2.1 Henrik Ibsen 40 2.2 Vijay Tendulkar

2.2.1 The state of Marathi drama before Tendulkar

Vijay Tendulkar was a veteran playwright, literary essayist, political journalist, and social thinker in Marathi. He was born on January 6, 1928 and died on May 19, 2008. He was a rebellious, courageous and a visionary playwright. He voices the psyche and the crisis of the commonplace people. For almost sixty years he actively participated in the field of creative writing. Vijay Tendulkar has been a trend setter in the field of dramatics. Before him the play writing was confined to the stories that dealt with history and religion. Also the musical plays were more popular in the music than the themes of the play. Initially as a newcomer Tendulkar wrote plays which fit into the current stream, but later there was a tremendous change in his writing and presentation of the play.

The ﬁeld of Marathi drama started changing in the late 19th century and it started becoming modern in the 20th century. Chandrashekhar Barve notes-

The Marathi play was not developed up to 1874. But because of the then inﬂuences of English dramas, it was on the changing mode. Translation of the Sanskrit plays of the ancient time and the English plays was the main genre during this period. Marathi playwrights tried writing plays based on these themes and gradually the Marathi play started getting its own shape and form (Barve/1985: 14).

The Marathi dramatics had taken a new path of modernism. According to Mr. Barve,

Drama is a power of acute observation of the interaction between the state and the speed. One can have its ﬁrst hand experience even by reading it, there is no need of performance. So the novelty in the dramatics has an additional factor in the newness of the script and its presentation on the stage. (Barve/1985: 04).

Modernism does not limit itself to the time. Whatever that happens in the present time does not necessarily be modern. Modernity depends upon the content, in its core. Bamber Gascoigne has made remarks on the modernity in the play. According to Gascoigne–

The stage of the play was within the constraints of the speciﬁc norms and conditions till the second world war. The modern stage struggled to wave off these norms and to make the drama free from them. As a result, the plays underwent the

2.2 Vijay Tendulkar 41 transformation in the presentation, structures and the themes as well. Some plays also tried writing plays without action. Therefore the real value of the play lies in the viewpoint and the experience of the playwright and to present it with that outlook (Gascoigne Bamber/1962: 9, 12).

This supports the view that modernity is not something conﬁned to the shape or the design, but it wholly depends on the content. The role of modern drama is to examine and throw light on the traditional society and the reexamine the morals present in it. This movement began in western culture mainly with the plays of Henrik Ibsen. Gradually, it came into India.

Hippolyte Taine (1828-93) is best known for his theory that literature is the product of la race, la milieu et la moment. For him-

A work of literature is a transcript of contemporary manners, a representation of a certain kind of mind. Behind each document, there was a man. One studies the document in order to know the man. But Taine is not a biographer; when he writes man, he means not the individual author, but the author as a representative of his race, surroundings, and epoch (Vander Wolk William / 1997: 02).

Based on this, Vijay Tendulkar’s plays are concerned with middle class individual set against the hostile society. Another noteworthy feature of these plays is that the problems depicted in these plays do not have an easy solution. Thus he presents a modern man in all his complexities and brings modernity to the theatre.

2.2.2 Earlier writings : from short stories to one act play

Vijay Tendulkar started his career as an author with short stories. He has written almost 50 to 52 short stories. The names of his anthologies of the short stories are ‘Kachpatre’ (Pots of glass), Meshapatra ( an idiot), Dwandwa (Duet), Gane (a Song) and Fulpakharu (A Butterﬂy). Tendulkar was not interested either in the design of the story or presenting new techniques in them. He was interested only in the complications of human mind and behaviour. Even then his plays cannot be categorized as psychoanalytical plays. He was not there to solve the puzzles of human behavior. On the contrary, he revealed the puzzles of life very clearly and plainly.

2.2 Vijay Tendulkar 42 The main target of Tendulkar’s plays was the middle class, their sense of hap- piness and their sorrows. They reﬂect the naive middle class having the moral pressure and fear of sins, virtues and vices. His main objective of writing stories was to portray the stiﬂed state of mind of the common people.

After the prime time of his career as a writer, Vijay Tendulkar wrote ﬁctions and creative literature. Kowali Unhe (Tender sun), Ratrani (Name of a ﬂower blooming only at night), and Fuge (Baloons) are some of the books of his collected articles. They are critically acclaimed and are mentioned that they are ever fresh and blooming. The human experiences become alive through his pen. He is considered as the master of words, who has made all feelings and emotions alive in an extremely interesting manner. There is much elasticity in every feeling, emotion and sentiment of human life which he portrays. It is said about him that he writes not to teach or advice but to have the knowledge of the experience. The reader experiences the incident, he depicts. Tendulkar is known for capturing the exact moment in his words. He has targeted the common people belonging to the middle class family in his plays. He has keenly observed the capability, incapability, the drawbacks and also the limitations of the middle class society in his writing. He sarcastically comments on the power of the middle class man.

Later he tried on One act plays. He has written twenty four one act plays. The known collections of his one act plays are Raatra (The night), Ajgar ani Gand- harwa (The anaconda and the Celestial musician), and Bhekad(The coward). In this genre too, he gave more emphasis on the content than any other technical nuances. Most of the themes of his one act plays are the broken dreams with the realistic depiction of life of the middle class people. He searches minutely the complexities in the relationships between men and women; before marriage, after marriage and at the extra marital relationship. They reveal the stressed situations and social norms to which they have to surrender themselves and become the objects of unhappiness. Chandrashekhar Barve comments –

Tendulkar deals with out of ordinary situations, yet they do not cross the limit of decency. They are not the presentations of perverted minds. He looks at those issues with serenity and expect the audience too to think that way. Thus Tendulkar approaches all aspects of life in his writing, he focuses on the middle class distress and unhappiness. (Refereed to and translated from Barve/ 1985:25).

2.2 Vijay Tendulkar 43 2.2.3 Tendulkar’s aim of writing plays

Tendulkar as a playwright is more prone to the stark realities in and around society. He wanted to develop his own style. Therefore, he never wrote as per the traditions and the set designs of the plays. He was experimental and always liked to try something new which could be realistic and yet shocking to the reader audience. He was truly and deeply attracted to the mechanism of the human mind and its complexity. Twenty eight full length plays are to his credit. He has translated a few plays of other non Marathi playwrights. They are Hasty Heart by John Patrick, translated as Lobh Asawa, hee Vinanti, Last days of Lincoln’ written by Mark Doren as Lincoln yanche akherche diwas, Street car named Desire by Tennessee Williams as Vasana chakra, a play by Mohan Rakesh, Adheahure and Tughalakh by Girish Kernard with the same titles.

He has written eleven plays for children. The objective was to entertain children at their level. He makes the characters, fanciful and mysterious. When it comes writing a play, Tendulkar primarily perceives the stress between the individual and the situation he/she is in and then puts them in proper and apt words. Because he never insists on what he wants to say objectively, it becomes more interesting to read. Tendulkar took interest not in lighthearted subjects, but he also liked to present plays that were grave, and serious. He has an attraction for the behavioral patterns of human beings which are generally out of frames. He wrote Gruhastha (a house holder) in 1955. This happens to be his first play. It was rewritten in 1963 and was named as Kawalyanchi shala (School of crows). The first play was a total failure, but after that he wrote twenty five plays. Parallel to the first play he wrote Shreemant (The rich). It has a conflict between as the title suggests, the rich and the poor. It is a quarrel between two egos. One representing the established society and the other the deprived one. Shreedhar represents the world of tramps, the underprivileged society. He challenges not the richest or hypocrisy, but being inhuman because of being rich. His way of confrontation is not decent at all. Thus Tendulkar targets nothing else but justice in society. Then he wrote Manus nawache bet (An island called a man) in 1956. It deals with a simple question of living of the common man. In Ek Hatti Mulgi (An adamant girl) Tendulkar becomes very serious about the family relationships. He has brought two totally mismatched characters - Tatya , the father in law and Mangala, his daughter in law- on the stage. Tate is a hypocrite and Mangala is honest and sincere in every aspect. It is a conflict

2.2 Vijay Tendulkar 44 between two self esteems. Through this play the message given is not based on poetic justice. Gradually his plays became bolder and more confident. In 1968, he wrote Shantata! court chalu ahe ! (Silence! The court is in Session.). It reveals the suffocation of a spinster lady who has become a victim of the lust of a young man. She is blamed for this crime. And the real criminal who has taken advantage of her, remains aloof and enjoys the cruelty thrust upon the girl. The girl is confined not only within the doors of her house, but in the cages of the burning eyes of the society. She becomes helpless before the hypocrite society. The play, which started in a jocular manner turns out too grave and makes the audience intensely introvert and stunned at the same time. His Gidhade (Vultures) written in 1971 has a content which stuns the readers. The language and the images used are shocking to the fearful mind of the person belonging to the middle class, yet he can very well relate to the frustration depicted in the relationships between Rama, Rajanikant and Papa. The play is horrendous, atrocious at the same time it is full of pity. The play, written in 1973, Gharate amuche chhan depicts the houses where the house has its own discipline and order. The middle class man who has a perfect family, caring wife is presented to have an illicit relationship with another woman. The conflict is focused on the wife Sunetra and mistress Vimal. Surprisingly, they do not even think how the ‘man’ has exploited them both and also insulted them, but they are busy proving who is the real owner of the house in true sense. The out of focus way of thinking of women is ridiculed in the play. The topics mentioned in the play are all related to the middle class society. In 1972, he wrote Sakharam Binder which made a havoc in the society at all strata. Soon after the play was produced, the critic Arundhati Banerjee comments:

For many decades no play has created such a sensation in a theatre world of Maharashtra as Vijay Tendulkar’s Marathi play Sakharam Binder ( Adarkar/Banerjee Arundhati/ 2014: xiii).

The play as Tendulkar has stated in an interview, grew around the central character Sakharam, a bookbinder, who, though a Brahmin is the antithesis of the general idealized conception of a member of that caste. It depicts the power relation between their tri-of Laxmi-Sakharam-Champa.

Followed by this play his other controversial play was Ghashiram Kotwal published in 1973. And in 1973-74 he wrote another play Dambdwipacha Mukabla (Encounter in Umgugland); a political allegory in which an intelligent game is

2.2 Vijay Tendulkar 45 played between the ministers having high positions and a girl called Vijaya, an inexperienced princess who turns the tables on her advisers and refuses to be their pawn. Compared with others, she has a very humanitarian nature while interacting with others. Her relationship with Prannarayan who is a eunuch, also throws light on how she studies human beings. With unique styles and experiments Tendulkar has written much more realistic and social plays. In 1982, he wrote Kamala which happens to be a true story that happened in Luhardaga. Taking it as a base, he has tried to reveal the problems of women, which has roots in the orthodox traditional society at large. Through the women characters depicted in this play, Sarita, the wife and Kamala the woman of the ﬂesh market, Tendulkar throws light and makes the audience aware of the position of women in contemporary Indian society.

2.2.4 Contemporary playwrights of Tendulkar and their inﬂuence on him

In the 1960’s four dramatists from different regions of India, writing in their own regional languages, were said to have ushered modernity into the sphere of Indian drama and theater. Because of British impact, and English education, the dramatists followed the new form of telling stories and entertainment. They looked into the techniques and themes of the English playwrights and followed them in their plays. Naturalistic portrayal of life, presentations on social questions and showing psychological insights of the characters were new to Marathi drama. The playwrights like Mohan Rakesh in Hindi, Badal Sircar in Bengali, Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi and Girish Kernad in Kannada tried to present their perceptions of reality through their plays. The period between 1954 to 1974 has been a push to the modernity in the ﬁeld of Drama. During the period 1954 to 1974, the Marathi drama was mainly the translated forms of the plays by English playwrights such as by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Ibsen and also by Tenesee Williams, O’ neil, Pirandelo Brecht. Marathi reader could reach these international playwrights through these translations. This could be said as the base of transformation in Marathi drama. New dramatists were attracted towards the meaning of human existence which was discussed in the western drama. Also, there was a natural fascination to crack the age-old limitations of the norms of writing a play. In the plays after 1945, the focus shifted to the society and the social problems. The earlier playwrights like Toradmal, Khare dealt with the basic problems of the so called middle class people. The modern

2.2 Vijay Tendulkar 46 playwrights such as Khanolkar, Mahesh Elkunchwar and Satish Alekar have captured the modernity with its intrinsic sense in their plays. They reﬂected their understanding about human existence in their plays. Thus modernity deeply reached in their themes and plots. They threw light on the distinction between the inner and outer face of the ‘man’ as such. They represented the varieties of human behavior and psyche of the people through their plays. Their extrovert presentation of human relationships makes the readers and the audience introvert and upsets them from within.

Tendulkar freely experimented on the stage. He used dramatic techniques and properties such as lights, colours setting to convey the moods and situations of the individual character on the stage. He presented weird, inexplicable yet real situations that reﬂected in the world around. Arundhati Banerjee in her introduction of Five Plays rightly observes–

All his plays have a direct, one-to-one relationship with the reality. All of them concentrate on different aspects of the human character. All of them highlight the complexity of human relationships. Most deal with the individual placed against the backdrop of society and explore the tensions between the two. In all of them women play signiﬁcant or key roles in the plot. All the works contain a latent critique of modern Indian society, mostly middle class and lower middle class, though from different angles (Adarkar/Banerjee Arundhati/ 2014: xviii).

The roots of Tendulkar’s experiments in theatre is, as he himself writes, are in the experimental theatre in America and the African experimental theatre. Instead of showing everything that pleases the audience he got attracted towards the ’off Broadway’ trend that is instead of pleasing the audience he wanted to show the frustrating reality of human life through the plays. Taking this thought as a guideline he created his own style and portrayed injustice, cruelty, and dominance over the weak through his plays.

It was indeed true that Tendulkar was writing for Marathi theatre, yet he was certainly different from the main stream of his contemporary writers in Marathi. He was on his own. To relate with the society, the day-to-day happenings around and to give true and honest reaction to them was exclusive of Tendulkar. Therefore he cannot be set in any established frames. He also adds that Tendulkar’s writing has tragedy in its nucleus. He is an exceptional person having attraction for colourful life and at the same moment to look at it with aloof, melancholic objectivity. (referred and translated from the article by Padhye Digambar/2009).

2.2 Vijay Tendulkar 47 Most of Tendulkar’s plays have women protagonists. They have basic understanding, intelligence and rationality yet they have constraints of social and individual impediments. The presentation of the women characters is not for the presentation of women to attract the audience. They have different perspectives which stand out in the field of drama. He tries to present their unexpressed wish that they too want to live as an ‘individual’ rather than a ‘woman’. Tendulkar has presented the struggle and the conflict of two egos. While presenting this conflict, Tendulkar becomes sarcastic, intense and sharp. He goes deep down into the roots of social, psychological and familial level of the conflict and the individual. He never makes it explicit. His implicit presentation of the conflict makes the audience / reader more introvert and restless.

In spite of the fact that Tendulkar himself never holds that he was the follower of Ibsen, two great Critics of Marathi plays, Mr. Madhav Manohar and G. M. Kulkarni write that -

The only Marathi playwright who believes in and accepts Ibsenism is the one and only one, Vijay Tendulkar’(Kulkarni G. M./1971:49).

Mr. S.N. Banahatti writes-

Ibsen’s plays reﬂect the social background of his time. He represents the situation of the common middleclass man and how he was depressed with the hypocrisy around him. He threw light on the selﬁshness and sensuality disguised with the ideals and idealism. He also revealed how the truth and freedom is oppressed under the false social norms. Most of the time, such individuals are women. Ibsen clearly represented the painful perplexity of the women’s psyche through most of his plays. His main objective behind writing the plays was to show the correlation between the contemporary problems of the society and the people who lived in it. The main principle of Ibsen’s plays is presenting reality. (Banahatti/1959:186-189).

It vividly reﬂects in Tendulkar’s plays.

It is true that Tendulkar’s plays too depict the social situations around. His initial plays ‘Shreemant’, ‘Ek Hatti Mulgi’, ‘Silence, the Court is in Session..’, ‘Vultures’ expose the hypocrisy of people in society. The plays like ‘Silence, the Court is in Session!’, ‘Shreemant’, ‘Ek Hatti Mulgi’, ‘Sakharam Binder’, ‘Kamala’, ‘Kanyadaan’ have the depiction of women’s bafﬂement about their identity. He relates with the social and contemporary problems, but he does not conﬁne them only with the present. It becomes universal. And thus, though there is a tremendous

2.2 Vijay Tendulkar 48 difference between Ibsen’s writing and Tendulkar’s writing, the actions, thoughts and characters become universal. Ibsen writes in a very soft, poetic manner while Tendulkar is too aggressive to reach the audience. But the ultimate aim of both the dramatists is same though their styles differ completely from each other.

Tendulkar’s writing is not conﬁned to only middle class. In the plays like ‘Sakharam Binder’, ‘Baby’, ‘Pahije Jatiche’ he descends from highest to lowest. He has discussed the political situations in ‘Dambadweepacha Mukabla’, His ‘Kanyadan’, ‘Kamala’ also cross the limitations of the established norms in the society. Therefore, it would be wrong to say that his plays are conﬁned only to one class of society. He deals with the themes where there is a struggle to live as a man in the society. Tendulkar has gone ahead of times and has predicted the situation in the future through his plays. For example, the issue of live in relationship in Sakharam Binder, is in the acceptable terms these days. The concept of maiden mother in ‘Silence,The Court is in Session ..’ is not considered as a taboo subject these days. The new society has many maiden mothers who cherish single parenthood. He reached every corner of the society and the people of every strata. Sometimes his writing tends to be absurd yet it is not the theatre of absurd. It only shows the absurdity of the modernity.

To conclude, Tendulkar does not confine himself with a particular class of society, but he looks at everything with rational, analytical and modern point of view. This viewpoint is similar to Ibsen, but cannot be said that he followed Ibsen. Tendulkar did experiments on the stage at every level. Language, setting, the lights and the interaction between the characters were not easy to interpret and understand at the outer level. He said in one of the interviews with Shambhu Mitra, that whatever he uses as props in the play are meant to reach to the audience. Reaching out to the people is the main objective rather than following the established norms. Thus Vijay Tendulkar wrote about human life. He was not happy with the superficial, attractive life. He pondered over the secondary way of life. He witnessed the filthy residences, infamous brothels, interacts with the people, prostitutes and presents that reality on the stage. He also visited the prisoners, their perverted lives, their sufferings and tries to find out the unseen, hidden reasons behind it. He observed the cruelty, brutality keenly and presented this other hideous, rotten and ugly world through his powerful medium of drama.

2.2 Vijay Tendulkar 49