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A Study of Shakespeare Performances in Colonial Calcutta Alicante Journal of English Studies 25(2012): 193-208 From ‘Imitation’ to ‘Indigenization’: A Study of Shakespeare Performances in Colonial Calcutta Vikram Singh Thakur Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University [email protected] ABSTRACT The plays of William Shakespeare have been performed all over the globe. This is particularly true of the erstwhile colonies of Britain and India is no exception. Along with other English playwrights, Shakespeare’s plays began to be performed in India during the eighteenth century by British officials for their entertainment. Educated Indians took these performances as a model to develop ‘modern’ Indian theatre. The present essay engages with Shakespeare production in colonial Calcutta, starting with Shakespeare performances in English before moving on to consider the later process of ‘indigenizing’ Shakespeare. The essay also proposes that Shakespeare production in Calcutta after the 1850s when Shakespeare’s plays moved out of the confines of schools and colleges has been governed by its own aesthetics. Shakespeare has been in the repertoire of modern Indian theatre for at least two centuries. Shakespeare production in India has, however, never been uniform. Shakespeare’s plays were performed, at least initially, by English-educated Indians in ‘imitation’ of those staged by British officials in India during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, there was a gradual and noticeable assimilation of Shakespeare’s plays into indigenous theatrical activities. An illustrative example is the Shakespeare performances in colonial Calcutta (now Kolkatta). The present essay seeks to study Shakespeare performances in colonial Calcutta and tries to identify the shift from ‘imitation’ to ‘indigenization’. The essay is divided into three sections. Section 1 deals with Shakespeare performances staged by British officials in India in the 194 Alicante Journal of English Studies eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Section 2 discusses the rise of English education in India, which provided school and college students with a formal introduction to Shakespeare’s plays; these students went on to perform them in ‘imitation’ of the English theatres in Calcutta. Section 3 traces the transformation from the ‘imitative’ phase to that of ‘indigenization’, whereby Shakespeare’s plays were translated, adapted and sometimes appropriated into a more familiar Bengali context for Calcutta audiences, which helped to popularize Shakespeare among the masses of the city. 1. Performing Shakespeare in the English theatres of colonial Calcutta Shakespeare productions in India date back to mid-eighteenth century, when British officers in India staged the Bard’s plays along with those of other eminent English playwrights for entertainment. The sources of entertainment were limited to British officials, and so English theatre was ‘imported’ to Calcutta. Many playhouses came into existence as a consequence. Nandi Bhatia notes that theatres formed an important part of British social life in India as early as 1757 (2004: 12). Poonam Trivedi and Jyotsna Singh note that the earliest modern theatre to be established in India was The Calcutta Theatre (1775) (2005: 13 & 1996: 121). However, Sushil Kumar Mukherjee, a scholar of Bengali theatre, states that much before The Calcutta Theatre, the first English theatre to be set up in Calcutta was The Playhouse in 1753 which received help from David Garrick, one of the most celebrated actors of London (1982: 2). The Playhouse shut down soon after Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula’s attack on Calcutta in 1756. It was 19 years later in 1775 during the Governer Generalship of Warren Hastings (1772-1785) that The New Playhouse or The Calcutta Theatre was built. The Calcutta Theatre ran for 33 years until it was closed down due to financial strain. David Garrick, who had earlier helped to set up the Playhouse, supplied a number of painted scenes from London and an artist named Bernard Messink. Mukherjee quotes from a letter of 26 March 1781 (by Mrs. Eliza Fay) that this playhouse was well-equipped and “very neatly fitted up and the scenery and decoration quite equal to what could be expected here” (cited in Mukherjee 1982: 2). The Calcutta Theatre staged plays of Shakespeare, Massinger, Congreve, Sheridan and others. Trivedi notes that among various plays staged here, some eight plays were by Shakespeare, which were performed more than once (2005: 14). The Calcutta Theatre was known for its performances and got special mention in the reviews of the newspapers. For example, the following is a review of The Merchant of Venice published in Selections from Calcutta Gazettes (29): A Study of Shakespeare Performances in Colonial Calcutta 195 On 11 November 1784, a production of Hamlet was advertised as follows (Selections from Calcutta Gazettes 30): In the meantime several other playhouses were established, like Mrs. Bristow’s Private Theatre (1789-90), Wheeler Place Theatre (1797-98), Atheneum Theatre (1812-14), The Chowringhee Theatre (1813-39), Dum Dum Theatre (1817-24), Baitaconah Theatre (1824) and Sans Souci Theatre (1839-49). The number of such English playhouses shows the growing status of theatre in the social life of the British. Besides the repertoire of their own local actors, the playhouses also invited actors from London. Mrs. Atkinson, for example, came from Drury Lane Theatre and Mrs. Chester from London’s Royal Theatre; James and Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Deacle, Miss Cowley and James Vining came from Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres. It is therefore clear that Shakespeare was one of the major dramatists to be produced in India, especially in cities like Calcutta and Bombay in colonial times. Singh argues that Shakespeare was readily imported to India since: the productions of Shakespeare’s works enjoyed great popularity in Britain from the late eighteenth to the end of the nineteenth centuries. And by the mid-Victorian period, the grand-scale pictorial realism of the London productions, combined with the trend of canonizing individual characters, had left a strong impression on the popular imagination. Shakespeare’s characters and plots had become both commonplace and a source of inspiration for artists and writers. Thus, the Victorian colonists in India, while apishly promoting Shakespeare’s works in colonial Calcutta, were, in effect, reproducing the metropolitan culture as a part of the “civilizing mission” of the British Raj. ( Singh 1996: 122) Among the above-mentioned theatres, Chowringhee (established in 1813) and Sans Souci were specially known for their Shakespeare performances such as Henry IV, Richard III, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Merchant of Venice and Othello. Chowringhee could boast of the finest talents of its times like D. L. Richardson, Horace Haymen, Esther Leach, Henry Meredith Parker and J. H. Stokler, famous for enacting characters like Iago, Cassius and Falstaff. Chowringhee Theatre continued until May 1839 when a fire tragically destroyed it completely. 196 Alicante Journal of English Studies The Chowringhee Theatre, Calcutta (Source: Mukherjee, 1982: 545). In August of the same year when Chowringhee was gutted, Mrs. Leach, previously associated with Chowringhee, opened Sans Souci in Waterloo Street. Sans Souci continued to stage plays here for a year while a bigger theatre was being built in Park Street by public subscription. Dwarkanath Tagore and Lord Auckland contributed one thousand rupees each for the new theatre. The new Sans Souci opened on 8 March 1841 with a production of Sheridan Knowles’s The Wife (Dasgupta, 1988: 269). The theatre’s fortunes dwindled when in 1843, during a performance of The Merchant of Venice, Mrs. Leach’s costume caught fire. She was fatally burnt and succumbed to her injuries in a few days. Financial troubles forced the theatre to shut down in 1849. However, a year before its closure Sans Souci witnessed a performance of Othello which is significant in the annals of Indian theatre because a ‘native’ played the lead role for the first time in an otherwise all-British cast. The play was directed by James Barry and had Mrs. Leach’s daughter playing Desdemona, with Basihnav Charan ‘Addy’, a Bengali, as Othello. It may be argued that the Indian actor was probably not cast for his histrionic talents but his colour which made him suitable for the role. This seems to be endorsed by a report in an English newspaper which called him a “real unpainted nigger Othello” which set “the whole world of Calcutta agog” (Raha, 1978: 13). The novelty of a ‘native’ playing Othello was advertised in the Calcutta Star thus: On Thursday Evening, August 10th, 1848, will be acted Shakespeare’s Tragedy of ‘Othello’. Othello … the Moor of Venice … By a Native Gentleman … (Mitra cited in Chatterjee, 2007: 59). A Study of Shakespeare Performances in Colonial Calcutta 197 While the Bengal Harkaru’s review of August 19 praised Addy’s confidence and pronunciation of English as an achievement for a native, the review in The Englishman criticized Addy’s speech and pronunciation, but lauded him for attempting the role: In the delivery, however, the effects of imperfect pronunciation were but too manifest. This was to be expected, but not to the extent it occurred. Scarcely a line was intelligible, and this did not arise from the low tone of voice; Othello spoke quite loud enough, but he ‘mouthed’ too much. Had he spoken in his natural tone, he would have succeeded far better. His action was remarkably good in some parts, and once or twice when he delivered himself in a modulated tone, we were much pleased with the effect produced. Taking it as a whole, we consider the performance wonderful for a Native. It reflects great credit on his industry and performance. (Mitra cited in Chatterjee, 2007: 64) Singh, following Bhabha’s concept of mimicry, sees Addy’s entry into the colonial world as disrupting the simple colonizer-colonised binary whereby the Bengali actor by putting on the “white mask” also “enacted his difference from the white world, both in fictional Venice and in colonial Calcutta” (1989: 446).
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