Piya Behrupiya by Atul Kumar was the Hindi adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night with elements of folk forms and nautanki. The director spoke to UK Banerjee
Twelfth Night is a reference to the twelfth night after Christmas Day earmarked for the feast of Epiphany: manifestation of Christ to the Magi. Before the Bard of Avon wrote his eponymous play in 1601, it had become a day of revelry. Servants often dressed up as their masters, men as women and so on. This history of festive rituals and carnival time role-reversals, was based on the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia at the same time of year — characterised by drunken revelry and inversion of the social order: masters becoming slaves for a day and vice versa — and was the cultural origin of Shakespearean play’s main plot: confusing genders.In the story, Viola is ship-wrecked and comes ashore, but loses contact with her twin look-alike brother, Sebastian, whom she believes to be dead. Cross-dressing herself as a young man Cesario, she enters the service of Duke Orsino.
The mise-en-scène shifts to the household of the wealthy countess Olivia: with two campaigns. First is the wooing of Olivia by the love-sick Duke through his intermediary Cesario, but to no avail. The second is a naughty alliance of Olivia’s servants — Maria and Fabian — and hangers-on — Olivia’s uncle Sir Toby Belch and a silly suitor Sir Andrew Aguecheek — pitted against the high-handedness of Malvolio, her pompous steward.
A series of bitter-sweet chain of events follows. Olivia falls under Cesario’s charm, without realising that ‘he’ is Viola in disguise. Viola falls in love with the Duke. And Malvolio — following the conspiracy — makes a fool of himself before Olivia by: wearing yellow stockings cross-gartered; behaving rude to the rest of the servants and smiling incessantly in Olivia’s presence! When Sir Toby and Sir Andrew engage themselves in drinking and revelry, thus disturbing the peace of Olivia’s house until late into the night and Malvolio chastises them, Sir Toby famously retorts: Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and aleIJ
Meanwhile, Sebastian — also rescued from ship-wreck — arrives on the scene, which adds to confusion. Mistaking Sebastian for Cesario, Olivia persuades him to marry her.
When Cesario and Sebastian appear together in the presence of Olivia and the Duke, there is “confusion worse confounded” at their striking similarity. Eventually, Viola reveals that she is a female and Sebastian is her twin brother. The play ends in a declaration of marriage between the Duke and Viola, Sir Toby marries Maria and Malvolio swears revenge on one and all.
Piya Behrupiya, presented by the Company Theatre from Mumbai makes theatre sheer magic. Directed by the thespian Atul Kumar, the play uses virtually no props, barring four shaky pillars posted on four corners, and all actors assembled backstage to double as musicians. Among the characters, Sir Toby excels: in his frolics with Maria, cavorting sans lungi most of the time and donning some endearing mannerisms one has come across among drunkards. Both Olivia and Viola are excellent, too, being alumni of NSD and Barry John’s TAG. Hilarious situations are created and dissolved with seamless efforts. Cross-dressing a female in full frontal view of the audience has its own humour but explicit allusions to male and female private parts jarred in an otherwise high production value.
Excerpts of an interview with the director.
Your choreography has sheer brilliance…
It’s mainly based on nautanki, with touches of other folks, but no tamasha.
You’ve mixed Hindi liberally with English in your script…
I produced this play in the UK last year, being invited to participate in the World Shakespeare Theatre Festival and present one of his plays in Hindi. I thought a smattering of English will go down well in an essentially non-Hindi viewership.
But you’ve commented upon Shakespeare within his own play. Is this Brechtian alienationIJ
Yes, but this is common in our folk forms where there is often a sutradhar (commentator). It’s especially true in nautanki, where even the actors comment on the progress of events and so on.
Your ensemble acting is reminiscent of Jabbar Patel’s famous direction of Ghasiram Kotwal…
It came mostly from our rehearsals and was suggested by the actors themselves.
Plenty of physical acting and use of body language are also your hallmarks…
Again, a lot has come out of actors’ own improvisations.
lastly, your take on music and lyrics…
I’ve used folk music, blended with classical compositions. The folk melodies are from Madhya Pradesh and Punjab, with only one from Rajasthan. Regarding lyrics, most verses are adapted from Shakespeare’s own words, with just a few composed in original Hindi.