In which drums are beaten

I was given a ticket to go to the Beating Retreat today, which is an annual thing. I’m not sure what it’s about, it possibly has something to do with Republic Day. I went with Gopal’s brother (who has an awesome beard) and an elderly lady friend of his. They chose not to speak too much English around me. Every now and then they would, but not often.

The three of us get into a car and head over to the President's house. After a bit of a hike from our parking spot, and another violating security check, we sit down in our seats, and wait. Boy, did we ever have to wait. The good thing about the wait is that the President has a *really* nice house, and seating was set up so that we had a very nice view of all the domes and columns and stairs and other architectural features. All along an upper lever were camel guards! As in maybe 20 soldiers on camels, nicely lined up to best show their profiles. They were doing their best to remain static, but even the best trained camel can sometimes be beligerant.

Yes, I amused myself by watching the camels. The entire time. Every now and again, one of them would get bored of standing in a line and try to wander off, only to be immediately corrected by a number of camel minders who must have been hiding somewhere. One of the, for the *entire* event, insisted on keeping his face towards the crowd instead of in profile. I liked him best.

The actual Beating Retreat was pretty boring. It consisted of more military displays, this time in the form of marching bands. The bands played various songs on mostly brass and percussion (although there was some bagpipe) and walked around in various formations. At the end, all the bands played together, which was a bit of a disaster in my opinion. Every now and again, I'd check on the camels to see if they were enjoying it more than I was. For the most part, they were. At least they weren't running away.

For some reason, sitting and watching the whole Beating Retreat made me really tired. I had been planning for days to go to a Sufi music concert tonight, but I'm just too damn tired. Which is a shame since I *really* wanted to go to this concert.

Beh. Camels.

In which it is Rebublic Day

In Canada, we have Canada Day, which is mostly marked by displays of fireworks and drunkenness to mark our independence. In India, there is Republic Day, which is probably marked at night by displays of fireworks and drunkenness, but in the morning, there’s a big parade.

The parade is big enough to require tickets and waking up at an ungodly hour (it was still mostly dark) in order to be seated by 9:30am (after combating traffic and parking and queues to the ticketed seating). The security was ridiculously (but understandably) tight. You weren’t allowed to bring *anything* into the stands, and everyone was subjected to a (rather violating) search upon entry. There was police and commandos, all carrying heavy artillery absolutely everywhere. Festive.

Before the parade actually started, there was a lot of waiting around for the President to show up. We were seated in a tourist section, so I looked around at the wealth of white people in our area. I discovered a row of attractive [North] American boys a ways in front of us that kept me occupied until the parade actually started. Don’t look at me like that. You would have done the same thing.

Things kicked off which the President’s procession, the National anthem, and helicopters dropping flower petals in their wake.

What must have been at *least* the first hour of the parade was a succession of displays of the military. Tanks and many trucks carrying things like missiles, anti-aircraft guns, and fancy equipment. Big scary displays of military metal. These vehicles were followed by what seemed like an endless succession of marching corps and their marching bands. For a long while I managed to keep myself awake by looking for differences in the corps uniforms. Stuff like the light blue uniforms are airforce, and the corps all wearing turbans must all be Sikhs. I seriously contemplated just dozing off when suddenly there were camels! (I don’t know what this new thing is that I have with camels.) There was a corps riding camels followed by a freaking *band* riding camels while playing. The announcer (who was difficult to follow since she only talked about things as they passed the president which was a ways after they passed us) said that it was the only camel band in the world, which is believable. Really, the camels can only be for display since I can’t imagine them *ever* having been the beast of choice to ride into war.

Still, camels are pretty rad.

All of this military stuff was followed by floats representing all of the different states, as well as some organizations. All of the floats were very nice, so far as floats go. There was a lot of creativity so far as the people riding the floats. They didn’t just stand there and wave like idiots (except for Goa), but helped illustrate the scene on the float.

There was a display of bejeweled elephants, which made me *really* wish I had my camera (if only for W’s sake). Granted, they weren’t *that* bejeweled and they were there to carry a bunch of kids who had performed noble deeds (ie. Rescuing people) in the past year. I don’t think it’s *quite* the photo that I need to fulfill that mission. Although it’s pretty cool that those kids get honoured like that. They probably also got a plaque or something.

All of *that* was followed by many many dance troupes, who all stopped to perform something in front of the President’s box. This is where things surpassed boring, since we couldn’t actually see them performing. We could only see them standing and waiting to perform. So we wandered towards shade.

When we left the shade, we caught a bunch of motorcyclists performing gymnastic stunts. The kind where the riders somehow drive the bike on top of a ladder or a bunch of people form pyramids. Then there were planes flying in fancy plane formations and masses of balloons released into the sky to ascend into tiny constellations in the colours of the Indian flag and release confetti.

This is where I realize that I’m so damn cynical and jaded. I see balloons and don’t think about how pretty they are, but think about how dangerous loose balloons like that are to the environment. I see displays of military might and feel sad that this is a country that *needs* that much military might.

The camels were cool. Not to mention that, Vladmir Putin and some of his Russian buddies were in the President’s box. Also cool. Although the Russians are probably in India to discuss things like nuclear arms. Yikes.

No. I will be less jaded. I will think of camels. (Whee!)

In which there is a flurry of colour

The cool thing about living at this theatre is that there are constantly invitations to various artsy functions arriving in the mail. It seems that most of the time they are ignored for the pleasures of staying in and doing whatever it is that old people do at night. This means that I get to pick and choose from these ignored invitations and venture out to events.

Today, Jalabala brought to my attention an invitation to the inauguration of a folk dance festival. Originally, she was going to come with me, but then they started shooting, which pretty much kills the plans of anyone who is in there. So I went alone.

It was held in Talkatora Stadium, which is so *clearly* a sporting arena. A round……. rink, basically, minus the ice of course. Half of this round was seating for the President, press, and other important people. The other half was taken up by the fairly magnificent stage. There was (obviously) a large, flat area for the dancing, but it was surrounded by ramps, staircases, platforms, and doors, all styled to look like the remains of some great castle. I played the “what script would I stage in this space” game with a neverending series of possibilities.

I picked what I *thought* was a good seat, until I realized that there was a lighting tree in my line of vision. Granted, I’m pretty sure that no matter *where* I sat I would have had a lighting tree in my line of vision, or at least the lights on the trees in my eyes (most obnoxious house lighting *ever*). If I leaned a little to my left, I could see fine. There were rows and rows of performers seated on the far sides of the stage, which was sparkly and colourful to look at. Not to mention there were about a dozen seats occupied by little puppet people. Puppets!

I’m starting to hate this “be sitting in your seat ages before the performance starts” thing. Especially in this case, since the President was coming, so you had to wait that much longer for him to arrive, process inside, and the national anthem to play.

*Finally*, the lights dimmed, various introductions were made, and the show began.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I saw was absolutely spectacular. Every single troupe performed in the space of what couldn’t have been much more than an hour. We’re talking *hundreds* of performers here. All of the performances were interwoven and overlapping, the next group waiting on the ramps and staircases (doing what can only be called supporting dancing) while the primary group performed. Sometimes groups with similar styles (primarily the more gymnastic ones) would do bits together.

I wasn’t able to find where to buy a program, so I can’t really say what specific dances I saw. I know that they were a variety of tribal, military, and another genre of dance. Mostly, if not all from India. Some of the performers looked like they were from other parts of Asia. There was a lot of hip action and spinning. A number of groups (mostly tribal genres I think) involved balancing things like jars, lanterns, puppets, and three foot tall tiers of flaming things on their heads. Human pyramids of various size and shape were formed, as well as a variety of other feats of strength that comprised of balancing/carrying other dancers while still dancing. Overall, it was really quite impressive.

The ending consisted of *all* of the dancers coming onstage and doing a little final hip action together. Then the President did his congratulations and left, allowing the rest of us to leave as well.

I had a bit of an incident trying to get home. It took me for-fucking-ever to hail a damn cab. After half an hour of not being able to get one to stop at all, the first four I stopped either didn’t know where I wanted to go, or just didn’t want to go there. The autorickshaw that I *finally* got tried to drop me off at the *back* of the hospital next door, and really grumbled about having to drive around to the gate that I had told him to drop me off at in the first place. And then, he shortchanged me. Jerk.

When I did get back in, I found that the power was out, as was my cat. I found my cat long before the power came back on. Eventually, electricity was restored and there was dinner.

In which I do the second dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life

I'm *so* not posting this for public consumption.

In which the children perform

I’ve mentioned in earlier posts about my experiences trying to teach drama to kids on weekends. I believe I also mentioned writing a script in a matter of hours for them to perform. I’m also quite certain that I talked about doing *nothing* but build props and costumes for a couple weeks. Well, one stage of that journey is complete. Today, they kids performed.

I powered through adapting Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Butterfly That Stamped’ (which is a charming little story if you haven’t read it) into a fairly respectable script. Four main cast (played by four of my favourite kids), plus a bunch extra tiny parts (more or less non-speaking). Oh, and two narrators, who desperately tried to make excuses to never learn their lines. The nice thing about this play is all of the characters get to wear nice costumes, which always makes actors happy.

Most of the costumes were fancy dress clothes that the kids already owned. The sort of thing you wear to weddings, but are so nice you wish you had more opportunity to wear them. I had to construct the butterfly wings, which turned out to be more trouble than I thought. The on-site welder built me some very complex frames and I stretched and hand-stitched sparkly fabric over them, covering the mess of stitches with sparkly ribbon. It took me an eternity to do this. They looked pretty good in the end.

The setting for the play was the King’s garden which was made out of green streamers and an endless amount of tissue paper flowers that I got the kids to make when they had nothing else to do. Considering that the entire design was more or less tissue paper, it looked really nice. On the back wall, I drew and painted a rather striking and elaborate golden palace. When the Djinns had to make it disappear, they pulled a black cloth in front of it. It’s cheesy, but that’s what I liked about it.

None of these kids are stellar actors (although one of the narrators had a good sense of the text), but they spoke loudly and vaguely remembered where to stand. Miraculously, the audience got the jokes and seemed to enjoy themselves. Then again, parents are good like that.

The other play that was performed was one that Ansu wrote called ‘Train to Darjeeling’. Which is pretty much what it sounds like but with singing. For some reason, this play needed much more rehearsal than the other one, probably because of the singing and the fact that it involved every single kid in the class. For this show, I built a massive train by covering a perambulator with painted cardboard and painting more cardboard sheets to be worn as compartments. I kind of hated how cheap it looked, but I didn’t have the time (or any help) to make it look better. I also painted a railway station sign, which looked fantastic for some reason. Oh, and built cardboard razor blades.

Miraculously, that play came together for the performance. It came off quite nicely.

I didn’t actually see the plays as they were being performed. I was backstage, wrangling children. Helping them change costumes. Making sure they didn’t peak out onto the stage. Keeping them quiet backstage. Not fun, but it was necessary. After the plays, I was onstage handing candy to the children as they were introduced to the audience. Then *I* was introduced to the audience. Apprentice from Canada… blah blah blah… built a bunch of stuff for the plays… blah blah blah… Studying theatre here… blah blah blah. That was kind of strange.

I went out for dinner with the Akshara family afterwards at the Habitat Centre, which was nice. I’m still confused by what India calls feta cheese. It’s nothing like feta cheese.

In which I buy a new shirt

Vendor: I’ll tell you why I am giving you such a good price [on this blouse].

Miranda: It’s because I’m pretty, I know.

Vendor: No, it’s because you’re…. wait a second….. jeh……

Until tonight, I’ve always sucked at bargaining. I just don’t *like* doing it. I never have. Jenn kept *yelling* at me in Germany because of it. Then, tonight, I talked this guy into selling me a French Connection (which *clearly* matters to me…… wait, no) wrap blouse for 250 (rupees people) instead of the 800 he originally asked for. Of course, it helped (and was also hilarious) to also have a family who would erupt in a chorus of groans at how *ridiculous* the original asking price for everything was. I’m excited to buy new clothes. In magic-backwards-land…… I mean India, I can afford *nice* clothes instead of the bargain-rack-thrift-store stuff I usually look for.

Finally, after *weeks* of doing nothing but build props day and night (and spending every day for the past week rehearsing these bastard kids), I took a night off. Did a little shopping in Janpath (right as everything was closing, clearly). Did *not* find the two things that I *need* to pick up (nose jewelry and Dunhills). Had a delicious South Indian style bite to eat. Came home to find that my cat has learned to open the door herself and had been roaming around outside (very much in heat) for an indefinite period of time potentially whoring herself out to the strays that have been hanging around. Which doesn’t bother me. I *finally* had a night where I don’t have to worry about these damn plays.

Of course, tomorrow is an all-day rehearsal and then their performances. They’re just performing for their parents since, as of this afternoon, their plays were so horrendous that it has been decided *not* to invite the public. Granted, the play *I* wrote (which is wildly less complicated than the other one) is coming along nicely…… sort of. Comparitively for sure. All plays and no play…… all *work* and no play has been making me edgy and bringing out the House of Pain instincts in me (minus the rye). Not good when you’re around kids for half your day. Especially not good when you’re spending their rehearsals trying to keep the kids backstage quiet. Hahahahaha…… fuck.

Either way, I can kick back tonight, finish knitting those gloves, and watch Labyrinth. Bitching.

In which there are dead rodents

Last summer, when I had the pleasure of living with Lou (Andrea and Danny’s cat), he would catch small animals in that way that cats do, inevitably leaving halves of chipmunks on our lawn for us to discover.

It’s a cat thing, what can you do?

The cats *here* do things a little differently. Babul seems to be the only one that has any success at catching things. But he doesn’t *eat* these things he catches, despite the fact that he constantly wanders into my cottage to scavenge for food.

Today he caught a chipmunk and came into my place (followed by my cat) to *play* with the damn thing. He went under the couch so that I couldn’t stop him, so for the first while, I assumed he was dismembering the poor little thing. Which is a little unnerving. But he *didn’t* eat it, he just *played* with the damn thing. Throwing it around and other cat games. When he got bored, Jelaibi would take over playing.

This did not make me happy.

I managed to take the chipmunk away and tossed it under a tree outside and closed the door. But someone who must have seen them scratching at my door, opened it for them and they just brought it back in. The next time, I put it on the other side of the yard, which seemed to work.

Still, it’s a rather disconcerting way to spend half of my day.

In which I wrap up my time with Bharat Rang Mahotsav

I got home to late last night to review, so this will have to be two reviews at once.

Last night, I went to Miss Julie, produced by China’s Central Academy of Drama. Yes, that’s right, frickin’ *schools* are performing in these international festivals. Students directing their peers. Jealous? Oh yes.

I did a scene study from this play and fell in love with the script. Yes, it’s an incredibly unhappy love story, but there are many incredibly unhappy love stories in life. I *like* naturalist plays. Sue me.

The set was kept very simple (it was really a very ‘safe’ production), everything where it essentially should be. A decision was made to hang the Count’s boots and Jean’s clothes on red cords at the front of the stage, which adds to the story. The costumes were lovely. Jean in a period black suit. Kristin in very conservative blue and black gowns (and character shoes, which I haven’t seen in any other play). Julie spent most of the play in a very stunning strapless red ballgown (that laced up the back) with white lace edging. At the end she changed into a shimmering dress and jacket in vibrant shades of red and purple. If you know the story, you can understand the choices.

The production was so safe that my complaints are minimal. There were sur-titles in English (with the grammatical errors that I’ve come to expect) projected on a screen on the side of the stage. The problem with this (as opposed to having projections on the back wall) is that you’re constantly moving your eyes from the projections to the action, which disrupts the visual flow you would normally get. The sound consisted of a variety of string pieces (all a little *too* familiar to me), played at various moments (sometime a little *too* obvious), at various levels (to the point where you occasionally couldn’t hear the actors).

My main complaint was with Jean’s (Guo Chaoyi) characterization. All three characters are complicated with wild varieties of motives that make them seem a little bipolar (which in Julie’s case, it can be excused). I think a director needs to decide if Jean is *actually* in love with Julie or if he’s manipulating her and run with that thought for the entire play. In this production, Jean played both of those options (albeit he did them both very well), confusing how the audience is supposed to see him.

Over all, it was a good production. Nothing innovative, but very pleasant nevertheless. I think, from everything else I’ve seen, I’ve gotten used to seeing a lot of choreography and song. I’m forgetting what ‘normal’ plays look like. Granted, I had trouble concentrating on the second half since the gentleman next to me kept goddamn TEXT MESSAGING. Jeh. Oh wait. That would be the person who gave me a ride (and gifted me with pepper spray on the way home). Beh.

Tonight I went to see Arabian Night, produced by a Delhi company called Performers At Work and directed by Zuleikha Chaudhari (who’s grandfather founded the NSD). This was a ticket that was bought for me, under the assumption that the story was based on those lovely mythological Arabian Nights stories. I don’t think anyone besides me noticed that the script was originally written by a gentleman named Roland Schimmelpfennig. So German. So *not* a story about a mistress telling an endless bedtime story.

The production was advertised as being performed in English. It turns out that when they said English, they meant Hindi. Fuck. Luckily, there was a fairly lengthy and detailed synopsis in the program, so I was able to more or less follow along. The strange thing was, even though I could only kind of follow what was going on, it was still *so* German. Just browner.

The design was very interesting. White walls, white floor, white table, white couch. Framed and divided into sections by white neon lighting (set up in a way that I *know* I’ve seen somewhere in Toronto). In the opposite corner of this whiteness, accessible by a narrow path, was a smaller acting area with a brown couch, a brown table, and a (real) dirt floor. Lit (but not framed) by white neons. A different reality of the same room.

The actors were all dressed in pure white, which meant that when they went into the brown room, they inevitably ended up with dirt stains. The performance was intricately choreographed (by Rahid Ansari who specialized in martial arts and modern dance) in a disciplined way which meant that the performers were sweaty as well as dirty (and half naked) by the end.

I was very pretty and interesting to watch, but it’s so damn hard when you’re only able to guess at the action in front of you. Where comedy existed, it was in the text, so I couldn’t be sure *why* people were laughing. I’m not going to tell you about the story, but it’s interesting enough that I would like to find it in English and consider it. You know, as a possibility. Maybe try to find a way to make it a *little* less German in presentation.

In which I am confused in so many ways

Back to Kamani tonight to see O Lear, Rangayana’s version of King Lear directed by A.G. Chidamamara Rao Jambe. Spoken in Kannada. Jeh. I don’t even know *where* that language is spoken. From my experience, if the performance is good enough, language barriers shouldn’t be a problem.

I bought a ticket for this show because I’ve always wanted to see Lear, and I keep hearing Mike Albert’s voice in the back of my head chastising me for seeing UofT shows instead of Soulpepper’s Lear this past fall. Also, on the festival website, it claimed that they had given the story a happy ending. What? Lear with a happy ending? I’m in.

Of course, that was before I saw the atrocity that called itself MacBeth which turned me off Indians doing Shakespeare. I entered the theatre with great trepidation, but knowing that, no matter how bad it was, I’d stay till the end just to see the “happy ending”.

There must have been a number of patrons with the same opinion since the house was more than half empty when I arrived. By the end, there must have been less than a hundred people still there, politely clapping for the actors, who looked disheartened at the lack of audience. Hell, even the guy who was supposed to present the director with a plaque had left.

I can’t really judge the caliber of the performance. It turns out that I don’t remember the story as well as I thought I did (I haven’t read it in at *least* a decade) so I was floundering in some parts of the story. What was weird was *everything* was portrayed in a very comical way. There was a clown like quality to all of the performances. To the point where some characterizations made the Jester look comparatively normal.

The setting was interesting. All of the characters were dressed like rejects from Waiting For Godot; ill-fitting clothes, dirty and ragged. No makeup except for dirt and Lear’s nose was painted gold for some reason. Goneril and Regan rags were brighter in colour, and styled in a way that made them look like cougars, further highlighted by the very young men playing their husbands. Cordelia looked relatively normal by comparison, further highlighted by the fact that the King of France looked old enough to be courting women.

The stage was a small hill of mattresses covered in a sheet of burlap. Seriously, if there had been a tree, it could have been Godot. The dull, dirty setting actually blended nicely with how damn ugly the theatre is. All of the properties were represented by either sheets of crumpled newspaper or branches. The lighting design (which included specials for soliloquies) was bearable except for the fact that they’d forgotten to light the first four feet of the stage. Sound was dominated by percussion (the same as everything else I’ve seen). There were musical numbers accompanied by a band and a singer off-stage. But with the micD’ voice of the singer, the onstage singers sounded like they were singing along to a recording.

I was really quite indifferent to the production. During the first half, I read in the program that the “happy ending” consisted of Cordelia and Lear reconciling, I considered leaving. I stuck it out because I felt *bad* that the players had such a shitty house. And the fact that all the Shakespeare style gore happens in the second half. Not that it was gory…… it was still comical.

Maybe my indifference came from how *amazing* the shows were that I saw the two nights prior to this one. (Did I mention how kick-ass they were?)

Tomorrow is one of two nights off from the theatre for this week. Which is good, since I have an absolute *mountain* (Kilimanjaro sized) of stuff to build for the kids performances next week.

In which my breath is completely taken away

Tonight I went to see a Japanese production of Medea. Unfortunately, there was no program that I could find (I’m guessing they weren’t anticipating the packed house and ran out), so I can’t give you names or even the production company. All I can tell you is that it was directed by Satoshi Miyagi. The other thing I can tell you is that, between last night and tonight, I’m totally in love with what the Japanese do with theatre.

The performance was held at the Kamani Auditorium. It’s now the third time I’ve been there (along with the Israli music thing and MacBeth) and I think it’s safe to say that it’s one of the ugliest theatres I’ve ever seen. The scuffed, shiny wood floor (amongst the yellow walls and brown curtains at the front) really takes away from whatever is onstage. Placed on top of this awful floor was a simple set, dominated by a fabric wall depicting traditional art, divided into panels that could be raised for entrances. This wall also acted as a scrim, occasionally illuminating the musicians concealed behind. The only other set element was a bookshelf, about 20 feet high, filled with oversized volumes of classic literature. Thankfully, there were projections along the back wall which provided some light dramaturgy along with the text.

Regardless of the shitty performance space, the production was absolutely brilliant and transcendental. Once I stopped concentrating on the awful floor, I was fully engaged on the edge of my seat. I’m not going to compare it to the Uzbekistan Medea that I saw last night, since both groups told the story in wildly different ways.

There was a live preset consisting of women in kimonos with cloth bags over their faces, holding portraits of themselves. Hunched over by the bookshelf was a withered hag, the aged version of Medea. The show started when a chorus of men entered from the back of the house and loudly chattered their way onto the stage. They were a group of business men who go to a restaurant and coerce the maids to perform Medea for them. They pull the bags off of some of the women and assign them roles (the remaining ones are the musicians).

The men sat motionless along the fabric wall and voiced the characters, one character per gentleman, and the rest voiced the chorus. The women would enter in costumes and silently act out the story as it was spoken (in a recitative form), with much grace and physicality and next to no physical expression, just one decided face. Jason and Creon were presented (with excellent execution of decided bodies) as villains with no real concern for Medea. The elder hag-Medea primarily watched the action, occasionally reaching for her younger self, and filling the role of the nurse, poisoning the garments herself.

There was a subtext where one of the men gets quite drunk and goes after one of the maids. This resulted in a moment where he pulls the sash off her kimono and in the resulting tug of war is strangled to death (oddly similar to part of Jocasta). This image juxtaposed the servant telling Medea the details of the deaths of Creon and his daughter.

My words will never do justice to just how amazing this play was. I’m just going to tell you what happens in the final sequence and hope it gives you some sort of an idea.

The lengthy ending was unbelievable in how fucking awesome it was. When Medea goes to kill her son (played by the smallest woman), she chases him howling (the only time you hear a female performer make noise) with a knife, and then suddenly the action freezes for an impossibly long time. Slowly, she puts the handle of the knife between her teeth, and mother and son reach for each other. With great love and tenderness, she slowly fixes his tie and straightens his jacket. Then she pushes the knife through him. A flurry of music and action follow. Jason’s next section is spoken, but not seen. Then, all of a sudden, all of the panels on the fabric wall rise, revealing all of the women, now in sexy red dresses. The women who played characters remove the final pieces of those costumes. With great resolve, they kill the remaining men, who thrash about wildly onstage to the pounding music. Lights cut to almost black. The final image we are given is of the withered hag-Medea picking up Jason’s white jacket and tenderly placing it over the man who voiced Jason.

Brilliant.

In which I breathe a sigh of relief

I can rejoice! There is excellent theatre to be had. A least when the Indians combine their forces with forces from Japan, Uzbekistan, and Iran.

With great trepidation, I wandered forth to see Performing Women: Medea, Jocasta & Clytemnestra at the NSD tonight. I thought I’d walk, for the exercise and the view. As with every time I try to walk anywhere, I got horrifically lost and, with 10 minutes to spare, I hailed an auto-rickshaw with a really nice driver who was willing to let me ride for free (meaning he got a really big tip instead of a fare).

I snuck into the theatre a little late, but I only missed the introduction. What I walked into was a stunning display of beauty all over the stage.

Outside of the fact that all three play are about Greek women, there were elements used to tie all the stories together. All three plays were performed in their native languages, but luckily there were sur-titles projected on the back of the stage, neatly framed by red curtains. Bookending each story was a wild chorus (instrumental and vocal) of all the performers, highlighted by the three titular characters singing their fates, transforming one story into the other. I can’t describe it any more than that. I’ve tried. Let’s just say it was magical and seamless and very pleasurable to watch and hear.

The first story told was the Uzbekistan Medea, written and directed by Oviyakuli Khojakuli (who is actually from Turkmenistan), who is incorporates Central Asian aesthetics into his work, such as traditional storytelling and Sufi aesthetics. There were puppets of Medea and Jason used to tell flashbacks. For me, puppets are *it*. That was all I needed for a good night. Medea (Zulaykho Boykhonova) created an incredibly powerful presence onstage and had a wonderful voice, both singing and speaking, to match. The story was told with a great deal of vocal, instrumental and physical displays from all the actors, telling the tale with great clarity in a very beautiful way. The costumes looked like colourful, tailored quilts, but in a good way. Quilts can be sexy. Except for the tiny quilts wrapped around red feathers that were flung onto the stage when Medea kills her kids. That’s not sexy. That’s just a great way to end the story.

Iran presented a modern retelling of Oedipus Rex, Jocasta next, written by Mohammad Charmshir and directed by Mohammad Aghebati. This was the part of the show where a fair amount of audience left, I’m assuming due to the whole mother-fucking story line. The story was more of a series of nightmare snapshots, with eerie intakes of breath in the darkness between scenes. Jocasta (Elham Korda) was another striking figure, especially when contrasted with a weak, confused Oedipus (Saeid Changizian Fooladi). A whole different series of stunning visuals were presented, this time with more emphasis on one thing becoming something completely different. There was a great accident when someone was throwing shoes from off-stage and one of them landed square on the middle of the table, in perfect profile. On the costume front, clothes were fitted closer to the body (for the most part) and Oedipus looked just like an ordinary middle aged man, nothing out of the ordinary about him. This play also had one of the most dangerous (yet awesome) things I’ve ever seen to blind Oedipus. While sitting on a table (facing back), Jocasta ties a silken robe over his face and then proceeds to bind his entire body with yards of silken cloth. Then, Oedipus stands up on the table and turns round, removing the cloth from himself and around his mothers neck. Then he spends the rest of the play wandering around with the robe still tied over his face. This might be why they covered the lower level of their playing space with soft mats. This story had the least song and dance of the three plays. There was something that made me think of Beckett, possibly the tape recorder the two characters used to hear their stories. There was a sequence involving two people holding a screen so that all you could see were legs doing different things. This meant, from my fourth row seat, I couldn’t see the sur-titles, so I’m not entirely sure why I was looking at feet.

The final story was Clytemnestra, written by Sujith Shanker and directed by Abhilash Pillai. I guess that, since it was in Hindi (with bits of English, Urdu, Malayalam, Assamese, Marathi, Punjabi, and Bengali thrown in), they decided not to use the sur-titles (except for a few choral moments). This was bad for me since I don’t know the story or the language. I was able to pick up that they set the story in a post-apocalypse and gave the story strong political undertones. The costumes were exciting, combining traditional Indian elements with modern ones (and everyone in full body suits). The women were painted metallic to match their dresses. The men had pieces of military garb and facial prosthetics which made them look interesting, rather than ugly. The story was told with a tremendous amount of gesture, song, dance, and overlapping monologues. Much physical control was required by all the actors since a lot of the movements were slowed down. Clytemnestra was played by a tiny, golden statue of a woman (Manjushree Kulkarni) with an amazing voice that shouldn’t be able to fit in something that small. I feel the men stole the show from her though, perhaps because they dominated the text and the front of the stage.

The set and lighting design is where Japan came in, Daisuke Nakayama to be precise. Those Japanese guys can design some fantastic lights, that’s for sure. He also gets a thousand gold stars for being able to set all three plays in a way that’s just plain installation art. Each story (and I’m sure each director) is very unique, and to make everyone happy must have been a great challenge. It was simple, and stunning, and effective. I think I’m in love.

My trip home was also eventful. I was trying to call a taxi (the numbers I was given refused to work!!) and was approached by a journalist who recognized me from the Israli music thing, and is curious about the Canadian working in children’s theatre in India. Or he thinks I’m hot. Whatever. I gave him my e-mail address. A thousand years later I got hold of a taxi company and while I was waiting I bought some leftist books at a stand by the gate. Fifty years after that, I made it home, tired and cold. But nothing could shake the feeling of what I had seen on stage.

Oh! In all, it was so beautiful. One can only hope to be part of a production that creates that much beauty continuously onstage.

In which it is an incredibly difficult play to stage effectively

I just got in from seeing Ace Production’s version MacBeth at Kamani. It was a one night performance as part of the Bharat Rang Mahotsav festival that’s going on for the next couple weeks.

Now, I’ve seen quite a bit of Shakespeare in my day. On various stages at Stratford, university theatres, and parks. I’ve seen numerous people perform scene studies and monologues from various plays. Without hesitation, I can say that tonight’s production of MacBeth is *easily* the worst presentation of Shakespearian text I’ve ever seen. If you’ve seen some of the scene studies I’ve seen, then you can imagine *just* how bad it was.

Before I go into details, I’d like to mention that the company spent six months working on this steaming pile of shit. The director (Alyque Padamsee, who also played Duncan) has been working in theatre for half a century and has directed a number of great titles (including a Hindi Marat/Sade) and won some awards. I guess, in some cases, no amount of experience can make you good at your job.

In order to cut the show down to two hours, large chunks of text were cut out. Which meant anything resembling comedy, making the story continuously dark and evil. I missed the drunken porter speech until I realized that, in performance, it would have been a man staggering about with his mouth open. I missed MacDuff’s speech at the end. I mean, it *ends* the play for Christ’s sake.

All of the actors spoke in British accents, which is apparently the easiest way to make an Indian speaking English understood. Quite frankly, I preferred hearing the actors who maintained a semblance of their natural accent. It was just as easy to understand them (most of the time). Regardless, every last actor was terrible. I won’t get into detail. Just imagine the worst possible way you couple play each character and then magnify that by three. I could deal with Lady MacDuff, she played her one scene in a way that made you think she had an idea of what she was talking about.

Oh, I will mention the witches, since they’re always worth mentioning. The premise was that Lady MacBeth was a Tantrika who conjures up the three witches and creates a self-fufilling prophecy to make MacBeth king (which was shown as the start of the play). A very interesting idea……. if it had been carried through the entire play as opposed to just the opening. The witches were played by three men (including the one white guy in the cast), which was an interesting choice. Their costumes were long, black, raggedy, flowing, and pretty cool. They each wore wigs and half masks styled to look like ugly wrinkled faces. Their voices were amplified and distorted for effect, but the levels were too loud. They attempted to writhe in a spooky way that was just embarassing to watch. They used (what are probably) symbolic hand gestures that were basically metal-fists. The writhing and the hand gestures combined with the black costumes and long wigs made them look like aging headbangers. Yikes.

Subtext? It didn’t exist. The titular hero said every line with great resonance and arrogance, and his wife was no different. The sleepwalking scene (in which Lady M dripped snot everywhere) got pretty good halfway through, but that’s nowhere near good enough. All of the characters were flat, reciting the lines with no idea why they were saying those words. The soliloquies? Yikes. Just yikes.

Blocking? No motivation behind movements or actions except to create nice photo ops. A great deal of “Shakespeare Hands”. A lot of walking partway up flights of stairs simply to use the stairs. The swordfights (and knife murders) were horrific to watch in the sense that these men had no idea

The design was equally terrible. Lighting here seems to only consist of parcans and therefore only consists of general area lighting. Unfortunately, the areas didn’t overlap, and the actors apparently don’t know how to find their light. There was also a follow spot operator with a shaky hand. Original music was composed by Louis Banks, who seems to be a man who *loves* his synths. In his defense, the basic musical leitmotif for the witches was pretty cool until the rest of the music kicked in. Costumes: basic, not enough variety. I really hated the plastic Halloween crowns for the royals. The set was a series of stone-painted flats with arched doorways and stairs on either side. Stairs that clearly went nowhere. The middle section was a stone-painted scrim which would reveal the witches with the ghost of Banquo, wrapping Lady M in a shroud, or simply gyrating with their metal fists in the air. The scrim was a good idea. Too bad you could see the seams between the panels. The scrim was also used for projections which was awful until they showed a fight scene through a video of woods rushing past.

MacBeth’s head on a stick was a beautiful prop. Really well done. Part of me was hoping that it was the real actor’s head. It was that realistic.

I keep thinking about the scene study from MacBeth that Brendan and Michelle did. I believe they were both 20 (21 tops) when they performed it for our class after only a couple of weeks of rehearsal time. It was wonderful and brilliant and slightly incandescent. Comparing their performance to the car accident I watched tonight, I think Canadian theatre will have a very happy future. As for Indian theatre...... fuck...... it was *so* bad.

I will *never* recover from how bad that play was. Never.

In which I discover that there *is* theatre here

Yesterday, the father of one of the students here rang up asking if anyone wanted to go see a performance at the National Drama School that evening. Nisa and I were volunteered as willing theatre viewers. I can’t say I minded (I was actually going to look into getting tickets anyways). When have I ever turned down a free show?

I was warned in advance that this gentleman is a little ‘strange’. That’s all I was given. I didn’t think too much of it since his son is one of my favourite students. I figured he was just a stage-dad. Which he is. And *so* much more. The man loves to talk. Constantly. To the point where you can’t get a word in edgewise. Conversation tidbits on the way to the theatre:

Mr. Narayan: (to me) Over there are the Parliament Buildings.

Me: Yes. I...

Mr. Narayan: (to son, who’s 10 by the way) Udit, do you know the name of the man who was hanged for trying to blow up the Parliament buildings a little while back?

Udit: No.

Me: (Silence. Honestly, what do you say?)

Mr. Narayan: (rambles on a bit about the guy who tried to blow up the Parliament) We don’t shoot people in India anymore. We hang them.

Me: Jeh.

Anyways, get to the theatre, wait outside for a bit before going in. The space the show was in must be considered their studio space because there wasn’t that much seating (*maybe* a 60 person capacity), just three long benches. Sitting in the middle *seemed* like a good idea until I gathered that there was no intermission, just two hours of sitting on a bench which isn’t easy.

For such a small house, the performance space is pretty big, which is always great for the performers. Minimal set. Just a platform flanked by some screens at the back.

All of the costumes were shiny and wild and filled with colour and full make-up.

Okay, to be honest, I'm not going to review this show...... I just don't know what to say. It was nice though. Culturally different, so I don't know *how* to review it. Not Kathakali, but it's as close as I'm probably going to get.