Fascination for the Uncertain

Barrie Keefffe’s well know play ‘SUS’ is adopted by many campus theatre groups in India. The famous theatre group Atelier adopts it with contemporary interpretations in order to express the nuances of the communal strife prevalent in India, especially in the post-Babri and Post 9/11 scenario, says Kuljeet Singh.

Vague idea culminates
the blurriness hallucinates
“Where am I going”, my “I” questions
find it a little difficult to articulate it then

It moves, it sinks, it gets into me
the starkness, the silence and the stage lights
Denouement is pleasant and am so intense 
I am fascinated by the uncertain
I am fascinated by the uncertain

Perhaps this is the compelling reason for so many theatre practitioners to tread a difficult (read not-so-easy) path of improvisations. Texts written in the past provide with the basic raw material in form of plot and characters. Actors and visionary directors enable the text to transcend the confined boundaries of interpretation, criticism and reading. What remains is, for sure, the intertexual material for academicians and scholars, sheer intense performance for the actors and local flavour for the audience.

Time and again, we have witnessed the adaptations and improvisations of myriad texts: from Classical Greek & Indian dramas to western plays in Indian context and also realized the immense potential in the performances and the fascination for/of the uncertain. In this discourse, I will discuss briefly Barrie Keeffe’s well known play SUS, which was first performed and published in 1979 to protest the inhuman behaviour of police towards minorities.

A reverberative confrontation between black Delroy and Detective Superintendent Karn on election night. As the results filter through to the sparse interrogation room, Karn heralds a New Dawn for his beleaguered force. Delroy’s wife has been found dead in a pool of blood. He is stunned to find himself more or less on a murder charge.

In one of the adaptations of the same text by Players, Kirorimal College’s Theatre Group, Babri Masjid context is used to bring forth the existing communal prejudice in the system. A Muslim gentleman is caught on the pretext of murder and upheaval is created on the stage with allusions to the rotten political paraphernalia. Shaque dramatized the events of one night in a police station where an unemployed young man is brought in on the suspicion of having murdered his wife. The investigating officers reveal a disturbing readiness to base their conclusions on cultural stereotypes. The play exposes not just police brutality but more importantly the communal prejudice that infects the minds of those who wield power.
 
Gargi College also adapted the same text with all women cast and provided an interesting reading of the play. With the title Shak, the innovative interpretation interferes with the gender issues as well. Very tactfully performed, maintaining the tension of the issue, as in original, Gargi college did not take many diversions vis-à-vis plot and characterization, at the same time voiced the woman as the victim diametrically.

It is a testimony to communal profiting. The play is essentially political, an outcry not just against communalism but also against emerging neo-fascism. It leaves the audience wondering that how easily laws are moulded to suit the ideologies of people in power when they develop a sense of security in the top wrung of the hierarchical ladder.

Atelier's adaptation of SUS transcended from the idea of "minorities" to ideologies or perhaps "ideological minorites".

Chauhan, Paswan and Gurpal are not only three characters in the play but three different ideologies who are victims and victimizers at the same time. Gurpal is a left inclined, suspended-college-lecturer  & a social worker, married to a slum woman and works for prostitutes, urchins, road-side children and speaks vehemently against caste politics. Chauhan is a Senior Investigating Officer and has his own world of cricket and politics. Paswan is a newly appointed Junior Police Officer and assists Chauhan in his cases. All the three are related and not related simultaneously. They seem alike yet they are three different identities with bruised psyches.

They are both, Victims and Victimizers.     

This unparalleled improvised literary adaptation of SUS is a fascinating account of Universal Human Predicaments.

Performance at STEIN, IHC on Oct 6 and 7 2007 at 7.30pm.