E-Kantipur

The essence of good literature and drama, whether serious or light, is that strands of the plot are put together at the end and the participants’ questions are resolved. That is called denouement. Among several schools of thought, this is the strongest one. When we were closing a theatre named Gurukul on Jan 14 that we had started on Feb 6, 2003 with a promise of hope, fear and fire, we suddenly became wise. For those of us who were closely involved with it as writers, artists, board members and friends, it was true denouement. Its artistic director and creator Sunil Pokharel became a minimalist; he spoke very few words.

We met silent, serious and sympathetic crowds each day during its last shows over the nondescript hillock as its base was being bulldozed. To satisfy the overwhelming crowds, Gurukul had to put on extra shows. Artists

who were heartbroken by this demise of an institution that they had created cried even in the garb of serious philosophers and monks, revolutionaries and jokers. A line drawn by Aristotle between the emotionally charged audience and the detached actors broke in each of the shows. Every performative mode and every

location used for rituals and performance marked by liminality, according to its pundit Victor Turner, became fuzzy here.

This space taken on lease was bound to go. A scholar and social activist said to me not long ago, “No serious theatres in a metropolis acquire permanent spaces. They keep moving.” I guess he meant they should carry their heavy to light theatre accoutrements and move on. But talking about performativity in a metropolis where the Newars have been performing theatre for millennia, where space means an architecturally, emotionally and aesthetically and even politically constructed space, it is perhaps problematic to talk about theatre that moves on. In other words, that is tantamount to saying there can be no theatre in a metropolis.

But what strikes me today is the ambivalent approach of government leaders, politicians and civil society leaders towards theatre art. In the last nine years, politicians came to see plays at Gurukul. Maoist leaders and cadres surprisingly took great interest in our theatre, though it did not

entirely agree with their world views. But there were many who did not miss the shows. If you were a hardcore classical ideologue, you would not have gone to see our Gurukul theatre forms even if we used Bertolt Brecht a lot.

Our own conviction is that we created plays that represented the times through symbols, semiotics and rupture of old forms. Politically, plays have two avatars — either they are directly political or symbolic. To stage directly political plays is even more difficult. If the director does not play freely with imagination, such pieces become mere propaganda shows. We are not against propaganda play. That is a form too. But we put the same in different forms. I have my own experience about it. Two very polite and English-speaking smart young men wanted to meet me one night after the show of “Thamelko Yatra” in which some masked young people come and take away all the guns from the possession of an ambitious and strong woman. She is angry and confused like any woman living in the microcosm of an Asian baroque style feudal building would be. The young men who came to see me had come from the military and wanted to ask me questions. The peace agreement had not been signed then.

A similar but totally different set of young men met me on the turf of Gurukul one chilly night after the show of my play “Mayadevika Sapana” directed by woman director Nisha Sharma, an important name. Mayadevi, an old rural woman, has a son who has joined the guerrillas. He returns incognito with friends but melts into the moonlit night. Nearly heartbroken, Mayadevi goes to the window and says, “I have given birth to Siddhartha in my dream. He ran away leaving flowers where he had trodden. May flowers bloom in your path too, my son!”

The young men who wanted to meet me were Maoists. Somewhat confused, I followed them in the dark. They were very happy with the mother’s last words. They thanked me and disappeared. These young men regularly came to see all the other plays at Gurukul. I saw them even on the last day. I had not written a propaganda play, and director Nisha had presented that bit with human poignancy and sympathy.

People who are very intellectual, talented and well known in civilian life never came to Gurukul in the nine years it existed. People who feared to trespass on introverted lines did not come to Gurukul. People with sinus trouble would return, while theatre people did not come. And some very creative people in other domains did not come either.

But a large number of young people, university students, others working in offices, teachers, artists and political radicals did come almost regularly. The government made academies during this period. Performance renaissance discourses became futile. Gurukul was not the only centre of theatre; but judging by the hundreds of thousands of people who went to see plays there, we would call it a meaningful troupe at a time when history’s drama is taking confusing turns. We do not know the nature of the denouement.

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