For most urban youngsters today, especially in north India, street theatre is almost synonymous with Safdar Hashmi, the leftist theatre activist who was slain by goons opposed to his ideology during a performance on the dusty streets of industrial town Sahibabad near the capital. Ask them anything more about street theatre, and they start fumbling for words.
On the contrary, most inhabitants of ?youngistan? today have heard quite a lot about proscenium theatre, or theatre performed on stage in front of a captive audience. Not all, but quite a lot of them, see acting or being involved in a stage play as a step closer to a career in films or television or, often, they look at it as getting some ?work-ex? or work experience, which occupies a prominent place in their bio-data. And, why not? Corporate houses have jumped onto the bandwagon offering sponsorships and funds. For them, this makes good business sense ? they get publicity without having to spend huge sums on advertisements, plus an addition to their corporate social responsibility or CSR record that comes with loads of goodwill.
In this whole scenario, where does street theatre stand today? Why is it not being able to ?sell itself?? Is it on the decline or is it not visible as it has fallen off the media?s radar? Unlike proscenium, state support for this form of theatre has always been absent as, by its very nature, it is a collective artistic expression of protest and agitation.
?We do, or better to say enjoy, street theatre without such interests (funds or visibility in the media). The question of selling does not arise. We cannot even dream of it, as we feel our activities and performances are far, far different from a buyer-seller relationship?, says Badal Sircar, the pioneer of street theatre in Bengal. Apart from Sircar?s group I>Shatabdi, other groups like Pathsena and Aaina have been doing street plays in West Bengal for years now.
But the story is quite different in Mumbai. ?An industrial city, Mumbai was a city of workers. Therefore, when you looked around, you heard factory songs, doggerels, ballads, brass bands, and performances organised by workers in their industrial communities. Today, as the city gets more and more gentrified, it is losing this history?, laments Ramu Ramanathan, eminent playwright-director and editor of PT Notes, a monthly theatre newsletter produced by Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai.
But Sudhanva Deshpande of Jana Natya Manch, or Janam, the group to which Hashmi belonged, refutes any talk of a decline. ?Over the last 30 years, the amount of street theatre taking place across the country has grown, not declined. Thousands of groups have been doing plays in remote rural areas?.
As far as visibility is concerned, ?part of the reason is that it is simply not glamorous enough ? who wants to cover cultural activity in slums and villages when you have ?Fashion Weeks? etc?? says Deshpande.
Have these groups, especially those in urban areas, ever thought of sponsorships?
?Sponsorship? That is dangerous. We may lose our creative sense due to the sponsor?s pressure. That is why we have never visited the doors of government or any private organisation?, says Sircar. Most of them say they would rather depend on the goodwill of people. ?We just put a cloth before the spectators and become happy with the collected amount of money?, adds Sircar. So do Janam and other theatre groups.
However, in Maharashtra, the situation is different. ?In Mumbai, theatre is everywhere, in the maidans , on the streets?, says Ramanathan. But in rural areas, the Tamasha form is more popular. ?A Tamasha group spends Rs 15 lakh each. An estimated 160,000 artistes and other group members earn their annual livelihood through such performances. Most of these artistes do not own a field or have a roof over their heads. At the moment, the turnover is Rs 15 crore, and yet all the Tamasha companies have heavy debts. They don?t get loans from banks or financial institutions?.There are 30 big companies and many small companies today? adds Ramanathan.
?Theatre as a whole is the neglected step-child of the Indian arts. There is nothing like the kind of interest in theatre as there is, for instance, in Indian art, since art prices have started soaring and selling well in auctions etc,? says Deshpande.
Nevertheless, these groups, refusing to be ?tamed by funders?, as Sircar puts it, continue their artistic and social pursuits relentlessly. For, they believe, that street theatre or other folk theatre forms, like the Tamasha in Maharashtra and Jatras in Bengal, will continue to live through the people, as they have for ages.
?Inputs by Chandan Banerjee