Director Ovlyakuli Khodjakuli spoke to Utpal K Banerjee about his heart-wrenching tragedy, The Persians
Aeschylus, the first of the fifth century BC triumvirate of Greek tragic dramatists (preceding both Sophocles and Euripides), wrote obviously with his pen dipped in vitriol. This was because he was no novice to the bloody art of warfare, having fought the revengeful Athenian army at Macedon in 490 BC and simultaneously having achieved the first of his many victories at the major dramatic competitions in Athens in 484 BC. Apparently, he mingled his bloodshed and horrendous experience at least in his first play The Persians (performed in 472 BC), while writing off and on, and fighting his gory battles against the Greek.
The Persians, taken up by the second year students of NSD, under the baton of the Turkmenistan director Ovlyakuli Khodjakuli, is seen as a heart-wrenching tragedy: with neither beginning nor end. When Aeschylus wrote about the eternal issues of war and worries, happiness bypassed those who aimed to ruin the peaceful territories and homes of others in The Persians. In an opulent outdoor set, resembling the fore-deck of a giant ship, the grieving Persian denizens — both men and women — remain privy to the horrendous atrocities of the surrounding war. Wounded soldiers carry conflicting reports from the surrounding battlefields, burning torches are carried aloft the ship’s mast in rope-slings and an avalanche of flood-water eventually sweeps down into the emptied ship’s hold, drowning the desperate men and women. It is basically the war waged by Darius, king of Persia, whose expedition of a thousand ships against the Greeks capitulated to the latter’s fleet of only 300 at Marathon in 490 BC.
A Q&A with the director
Why did you choose Aeschylus after all these 3000 yearsIJ
Great self-destructive war and absolute world tyranny have always threatened people… I feel that the smell of war is in the air, and this is what made me decide on Aeschylus’ Persians.
Is your treatment naturalistic or stylisedIJ
Absolutely stylised. Through the enactment of this tragedy, I am seeking to shout about the absurd idea of all wars… it has no winners… it destroys everything in its way… it erodes humanity transforming people into wild, reckless animals, full of anger, cruelty and violence.
What is the motif of chorus that you have adoptedIJ
My chorus, like the original Greek idea, is all-seeing, all-pervading. My characters come in and out of the chorus, perform their roles, and dissolve into the chorus.
nWhy does the war engulf the common man, instead of being confined to the battle-fieldIJ
My war cannot be a fringe affair, as it affects the people in all respects. Men loose life and limbs, women are bereft of their near and dear ones. How can they remain untouchedIJ
How much have you used the original scriptIJ
Pretty much, only cutting out the repetitive portions, to bring out the major thrust.
nHow about musicIJ
I have allowed the music to be improvised all through. My purpose has been to keep music only atmospheric.
How much the young actors responded to your treatmentIJ
The actors have tried to immerse themselves in the horrid atmosphere of war — an atmosphere which causes havoc — so as to create an aversion to violence. A generation which has thought, at least once, about the unavoidable ravages of war, will never start one!