অযান্ত্রিক2 Comments on EMERGING BENGALI THEATRE

EMERGING BENGALI THEATRE

From the Ashes of the English Theatre in Renaissant Calcutta

I  OVERVIEW

THEATRE, Kleines Buehnenbild. Watercolour, Artist: Paul Klee. Dated 1916. Image Credit: Christie’s Images, London/Scala, Florence

Backdrop

Since the Sans Souci building changed hands in 1846 Calcutta was barren of any major playhouses for two decades till the Calcutta Opera Committee founded the Grand Opera House in April 1866 on Lindsay Street – a decent location in the South of Town Calcutta to launch the Italian operas brought forth by the famous Impresario Augustus Cagli. Next Year in early September, Lewis’s Dramatic and Burlesque and Ballet Company arrived in the City of Palaces. They chose the green field of Maidan to erect their collapsible theatre, Lyceum for entertaining the Calcutta public with a variety of English theatricals of prime quality. The two establishments, one the epitome of art and culture and the other a for-profit professional theatrical enterprise had given the white towners a fulfilling experience. The two houses, particularly Lyceum, had made a lasting impact on the development of the Bengali stage initiated by the Bagbazar Amateur Theatre founded the following year, on 11 May 1868. Another highly eventful decade was followed, marked by constant strife for balancing the quality of the theatricals against the sinking values of public appreciation until the Bengali Stage suddenly gagged with the issuance of the Dramatic Prevention Act (DAP) by the apathetic Government in 1876.

Operatic and theatrical culture in Calcutta did not end with a bang, but with a whimper that started in 1875 [Rocha]. The Lewis’s Theatre Royal gave its last performance on 29 January 1876. The democratic Bengali Stage reached the height of its performative excellence just before its voice was silenced by the DAP of 1876. It staged a comeback however after a few years of uncertainties, with a new identity under the banner of the Star Theatre, but that was a different story altogether.

The Stage For Bengali Theatre

There was only the Opera House at Lindsay Street to entertain the aristocratic society of Calcutta before Lewis’s Dramatic and Burlesque and Ballet Company arrived in early September 1867. Lewis’s theatre targeted largely the educated people in Calcutta to bring about a welcome change in the scenario of English theatre in the white town and ran into the native neighbourhood on occasions for professional interactions.

It was the time when a few zealous teenage Bengalis of Bagbazar in a remote northern Calcutta den bent on making serious theatre out of love. To undertake their dream project of producing vernacular dramas for the delight of the common people, they formed a small group named ‘Bagbazar Amateur Theatre’ sometime in 1867 with Nagendranath Banerjee, Girish Chandra Ghose, Radhamadhab Kar, Dharmadas Sur, and a few more who joined hand with them soon after such as Ardhendushekhar Mustafi, Radhagobinda Kar, Bhuban Mohan Neogi, and Amritalal Bose. The eldest among them was Girish a young man of twenty-two and the youngest one Amritalal Bose was then just fifteen and the rest were teens in between. Arun Chandra Haldar and Mahendranath Banerjee of Paikpara were also associated with the group [Dasgupta. 1938].

It was the time when the popular Bengali Yatra entertained the fun-loving Bengali public with their indelicate performances playing on the open ground while the spectators crowded at all sides with no scene nor stage separating the players from the public. Rajendralala Mitra in his scholarly reference book Vividhartho Sangraha defines ‘popular yatra’ as a filthy rendering of the traditional ‘Natak’, “নাটকের জঘণ্য অপভ্রংশস্বরূপ একপ্রকার যাত্রা এতদ্দেশে আছে”. [Mitra] However, the yatras played at the mansions and manors of Bengali aristocrats were relatively polite in taste. Those were more agreeable to the middle-class mindset being religious, historical and romantic classical thematically. Radhamadhab Kar described one such parlour yatra he witnessed in his childhood. He also praised the Sarmistha Yatra played by the Bose-para boys and mentioned the songs Girish had composed for their play, by saying in his own words ‘‘শর্মিষ্ঠা’ অভিনয় করিয়া! তাহারা বেশ সুখ্যাতি অর্জন করিল । গিরীশবাবু তাহার গোটা কতক গান বাঁধিয়া দেন“ [Gupta]. As we understand from chroniclers, Girish not only composed songs for Sarmistha but he was one of those who made it happen [Sushil]. When he was with John Atkinson & Company, Girish ”organised a yatra performance of Michael’s Sarmistha for the first time“ [Dasgupta. 1938]. To the exciting news of the success of the Sarmistha Yatra, Nagendra reacted by boldly declaring his will to stage a ‘ bileti yatra’, or a theatre, instead of a traditional yatra. Nagendra’s reactions worked magically on his colleagues, who accepted the challenge. Theatre was a new thing that had nothing in common essentially, artistically and structurally with the traditional Yatra to indulge in imagining the theatre was born of a traditional Yatra [Bandyopadhyay]. The boys found in Nagendra the right man to guide them in making theatre backed by his knowledge of theatrical nitty-gritty he gathered while playing in the musical theatre Padmavati – a momentous piece for which Michael “took up the Greek epic theme in the most daring and unconventional way, reevaluated old traditional values and glorified the spirit of revolt” [Sarkar].

Affairs with The Calcutta English Theatres

Almost the entire generation of Bengali spectators lived confined within the world of yatras of many varieties – traditional and modern, plebian and aristocratic, having the least exposure to the Italian operas and English theatres running on in Calcutta’s white town. It was not the lack of curiosity that kept the native Bengalis aloof but possibly a sense of diffidence or an edginess that they felt in the strange company of the ruling class. Amritalal Bose tells how the small team of Bengali Boys, consisting of Nagendranath Bandyopadhyay, Dharmadas Sur, and himself, shied away from approaching the Lyceum authorities to allow them to study the stage architecture.“আমাদের এই কয়টি বাঙ্গালী ছোকরার মনে এমন সাহস ছিল না, যে, সাহেব ম্যানেজারের কাছে গিয়ে বলে আমাদের একবার ভাল ক’রে থিয়েটার বাড়ীটা দেখিয়ে দিন” [Amritalal]. This draws our attention to some significant differences between the Derozians and the Bagbazarian theatre enthusiasts of the post-1860s. The Derozians being the students of Hindu College (1817) inherited English cultural mannerisms and sociability that visibly differentiated them from the Bagbazarian youngsters mostly educated in Colootolla Branch School (later Hare School 1867), Kambuliatollah School (Later Shyambazar Anglo Vernacular School. 1855), and Oriental Seminary 1829 – all respectable institutions of English and vernacular teachings designed for middle-class Bengali students. However, they missed the environmental advantages of English learning that the students of Hindu College then had. The fame of the Derozians as a free-thinking eloquent lot helped them to come close to the Anglo-European society by participating in the get-togethers at the Chowringhee Theatre and different literary or political meets. In contrast, the Bagbazarian boys, with their limited skills for socialisation, might not have been able to exploit the full possibilities of their connection with operatic and theatrical establishments in Calcutta. They had however enjoyed their life in full experimenting with theatrical art as an expression of the social realities of their time.

The boys of David Hare’s Colootolla Branch School and Gaur Mohan Addy’s Oriental Academy had the privilege of learning theatricals in their schools, and the other boys at least learnt from their respective schools to regard the theatre as a cultural institution. Significantly, the Dhurrumtollah Academy of David Drummond the alma mater of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and his associates had ‘established a little theatre in the School’ by the early 1820s, though Drummond had no intention to build his pupils as professional actors, he just wanted to awaken their power of thoughts as well as their hidden talents [Semanti]. One can realize the magnitude of Drummond’s foresight by noticing that Britain took a century to realize the necessity for using the stage instead of a blackboard to teach dramatics in English schools. The English Association in 1908 warned, “There is a serious danger in the classroom, with textbooks open before us, of our forgetting what drama really means.” [The English Association].

Rose Lewis a Friend of Bengali Stage

In the wee hours of the awakening of the Bengali mind to aspire for making a Bengali stage, Lady Rose Edouin Lewis of Lyceum Theatre arrived in Calcutta in September 1867, and too soon miraculously came in contact with Girish Ghose who turned out to be the ledger-keeper of her theatre enterprise at John Atkinson & Company. Rose and Girish the two versatile thespians were exactly of the same age, born in 1844, Girish on 28 February, Rose on 29 January. This curious coincidence offered them chances to talk about their interests, accountancy apart. Girish had frequented Lyceum Theatre before he met Rose Lewis at Atkinson’s [Gangopadhyay] and supposedly he talked about the plays he witnessed expressing his frank views insightfully. Their bonhomie most likely influenced the young Bengali theatricals in transforming their traditional resources and styles into the professional theatre of the modern time that was about to happen over the next five years. The profound benefaction of Rose Lewis in installing modern Bengali theatre in English fashion has been duly acknowledged by theatre historians but without giving many details. Amritalal Bose in his reminiscences spoke of the importance of Lewis Theatre indicating that the new kind of energy and ideas Girish Ghose brought into the Bengali stage performance were those he acquired from seeing plays at Lewis’ Theatre [Amritalal]. Mrs Lewis used to take him for an evening ride on her phaeton to talk about theatre. We have however no source to find out what exactly they talked about as Rose Lewis had lost her notebook and Girish had not maintained any. We understand from her biographer that George and Rose Lewis were well informed of “the strong traditions of Indian theatre dating back thousands of years. From his earlier visits to Calcutta in I860 George would have also heard of the introduction of Western drama in the late eighteenth century and the growing popularity among Bengalis educated in English culture of Shakespeare and other English dramatists [Callaghan]. Rose was alive of the adventurous journeys of the youngsters who eventually formed the other day an aggressive theatre group Bagbazar Amateur Theatre Society in Calcutta to build a ‘democratic stage’. Mrs Lewis watched Girish playing Nimchand in Sadhabar Ekadasiin one of its repeat shows and considered his play a masterpiece [Utpal Dutta]. She might have also witnessed more Bengali dramas held in the native locality. But, certainly, on the stage of her own Theatre Royal, she viewed two Bengali plays: Sati Ki Kalankini and Kinchit Jalojog on 9 January 1875 enacted by the Great National Opera Company that also held shows in the Opera House and the Corinthian Theatre in early 1875. There was, in fact, every possibility of her attending all those plays, as well as the play Sarmistha, launched by the Hindu National Theatre much earlier, on 5 April 1873 at the Grand Opera House on Lindsay Street. Rose Lewis became the most influential theatre star to the ardent young theatre enthusiasts. To Amritalal, besides Mrs Lewis there was no other woman found as a paragon of beauty, modesty, grit and serenity all in one in this city as he had never been out to England, France, Germany, Russia, America, to comment upon [Amritalal].

Bagbazar Amateur Theatre

We learnt from Radhamadhab Kar that a private initiative, named Bagbazar Amateur Concert Party was formed sometime in 1867 at 47 Ramakanta Bose Street [Radhamadhab]. The party appeared first time before the public in Feb 1868 with three instrumentalists: Nagendranath Banerjee (Dholak), Yogendranath Mitra (Violin), and Radhamadhab Kar (Flute). The Girish biographer, Abinash, mentions that Girish visited the party from time to time (=গিরিশবাবু মধ্যে মধ্যে তথায় যাইতেন।), but that does not suggest he was one of the regulars or a close associate of the party. Though he never says explicitly, Abinash seems to have been inclined to identify the Bagbazar Amateur Concert as the forerunner to the Bagbazar Amateur Theatre. [Gangopadhyay]

Bagbazar Amateur Theatre was founded on 11 May 1868. Whoever belonged to the prime movers to initiate Bagbazar Amateur Theatre, must have been committed to doing their Bengali theatre in a modern style as the English theatres do in contemporary Calcutta. They also wanted their theatre open to all without discriminating between the elites and the commoners. In spirit and actions, the Bagbazar Amateur Theatre was the precursor of the Great National Theatre initiated by the same aspirant teenagers: Nagendra Nath Banerjee, Radhamadhab Kar, Ardhendu Shekhar Mustafi, and Yogendra Mitra. We understand from Radhamadhab that Yogendra and Ardhendu were students one year senior to Radhamadhab in the same school. Girish then working at Atkinson‘s had little free time to get involved in theatre, but was always looked upon by the team members as their ‘undeclared leader’ [Amritalal] because of his great creative talent and scholarship besides his seniority even though he disagreed with his youngers on major policy issues time and again.

The Reluctant Force

The theatre history of colonial Calcutta keeps it undisclosed that there had been reluctant forces even amongst the most progressive Bengali societies. A modern leader like Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar took much time to appreciate the power of a realistic modern theatre as an instrument of social change. We understand from Yogendra Mitra that once Vidyasagar had expelled his classmate Bholanath Basu for his offence of playing ‘Vidya’ in Vidyasundar [Gupta]. Most probably, Bholanath played not at Jorasanko Thakurbari but at Pathuriaghata theatre of Jatindramohan Tagore who had published a new edition of Vidyasundar in 1858, with vulgar portions purged off. The dramatic version was further revised and played on 6 January 1866 [Dasgupta. 1938]. A year after a polite form of yatra, Naba Natak written by Ramnarayan Tarkaratna was played at Jorasanko Thakurbari on 5 January 1867. [Gupta] Another time Vidyasagar broke off with the Bengal Theatre in protest against their decision to engage female artists. These episodes were less known than the anecdote about his hurling sandals as an instantaneous reaction toward Ardhendu Shekhar playing the villainous Mr Rogue in the Nil Darpan natak, showing the prowess of a realistic socio-centric theatre. The kind of reactions that the new wave of socio-centric Bengali theatres produced, no traditional yatras could ever beget.

Lingering Yatra Culture

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a kind of non-essential paraphernalia, unrelated to the drama sequence, was adopted and increasingly used for hidden persuasion with vulgar appeals by the most popular yatra masters like Gopal Urey, Thakurdas Mukhopadhyay and others. The lowly trend of yatra in Calcutta society, branded ‘Natun Yatra’, was in vogue until counteracted by Ramnarayan Tarkaratna’s Naba Natak, a kind of yatra bereft of the crude obscenities, introduced at the Jorasanko Thakurbari. Jatindramohan Tagore of Pathuriaghata and Jyotirindranath Tagore of Jorasanko were both the leading personalities behind the movement for refining the vulgarised form of Yatra popularised by Gopal Urey, Thakurdas and others. Jyotirindranath warned about the hypnotic power of the impolite yatras on the public mind but that seemed unheeded.

The leading members of Bengali intelligentsia and theatrical artists were not equally convinced of the comparative cultural benefits of a modern theatre over the traditional yatra. Some modern theatre artists had a strong emotional bond with traditional yatras. Radhamadhab Kar happened to be one of them. He regretted those days of the musical yatras had gone when with the waves of melodious songs, newer beauties bloomed in layer after layer before the inner eyes of the audience. With its soundwaves, the chandeliers in the auditorium chinked synchronizing every rhythmic movement of the dancer. Radhamadhab was unhappy to see Yatra treated as an outcast from a Puritan viewpoint. He reminded his opponents that in Bengali society yatras were being performed as a part of social customs, and men and women, young and old, used to enjoy sitting together the delight of its melodious lyrics and ‘poetic motions’ with no feeling of shame. He reminded the members of modern society that in those days of flourishing yatra culture, there was no dearth of chaste and devout souls in our society. [Gupta]

Vexingly, some tight-lipped Yatra fans were there who liked to keep unseen their preferences for the glamorous and rhetorical appeals of a Yatra that a modern theatre rarely could deliver. We find Girish sympathetic to the Yatra fans. Given the honour of scripting Sadhabar Ekadasi, Girish thought it prudent to incorporate some typical features of the yatra into the dramatic representation to attract general spectators attuned to yatra culture. Girish did it by defying the maxims of Dinabandhu who composed his dramatic works following the modernistic Western norms. None of his works featured any unnecessary prastabana, sutradhar, naut, nauti, or musical interlude. [Dasgupta. 1928] Dinabandhu knew that the public taste for art appreciation was still clinging to traditional values and the onus was on him as a dramatist to uplift their theatre sense. Long back, in April 1860, Michael Madhusudan in a letter to Rajnarayan Bose lamented that they had not yet established a National Theatre or a body of sound classical dramas to regulate national taste [Raychoudhury].

Girish on the other hand failed to find anything wrong in adding some fun features to warm up the audience. His profound knowledge of Yatra and Theatre and his understanding of their sociological dimensions were of no help. It might be because of his upbringing in an environment of Yatra culture and himself a magnificently built Yatra artiste Girish turned into a Yatra addict. Changing the content of Dinabandhu’s work at will would have been a serious offence for Girish unless he secured the prior permission of Dinobandhu. Dinobandhu, a great fan of Girish, might have allowed him to do things even when they went against his mottos.

By this act, Girish also violated the unwritten protocol of his theatre group, which was to respect the authors’ version as ultimate. Amritalal recalled an incident when they had faced a dilemma during the play Noysho Rupeya which included a kissing scene. The stage manager, Amritalal, thought the scene might be inappropriate to show publicly but the author Shishir Ghose was not around to give his verdict. Finally, Amritalal decided to act upon impartial advice from a third party, a distinguished regular audience, Dr William Hunter, instead of implementing his independent decision. Ardhendushekhar was another incorrigible rule breaker who used to say or do something extraneous to the script, which every time accepted as an improvement upon the original. [Girish. 1908]

An Undercurrent of Yatra Style

His clear and resounding voice and his majestic demeanour in the protagonist role he played in mythical and historical plays made Girish an unsurpassable legendary actor of all time. His way of acting might not be suited too well for realistic social dramas, yet a few memorable enactments of social roles he played, particularly in Sadhabar Ekadasi and Leelavati nataks. Amritalal Bose found Girish playing Neemchand in Sadhabar Ekadasi so magnificently that he could not help calling him Naut Guru of Bengal – the Maestro of the Bengali Stage.

Amritalal adored Girish as an unparalleled superstar of Bengali theatre. But he seems to be a bit skeptical about some of his modes and manners. He remembered how the English theatres, especially Lewis’s Theatre Royal had provided them, the young Bagbazar amateurs, with ample opportunities to learn theatrical art by observing their stage performances, which was corroborated by Radhamadhab, Yogendra, Binodini and others in their reminiscences. Amritalal had realised by observing the players performing on Lewis’ stage that “the thunderous voice is not good to hear, and affection and mannerism are no acting”. [Amritalal] In saying so he might have an impression of Girish taking the stage by storm. Girish was not unaware of the modern English acting style. It was none but Girish introduced Lewis’s theatres to his junior colleagues to acquaint them with modern theatrical art. The overtone Girish maintained in his play was done purposefully to impress upon his audience who were still fond of Yatra style. [Dasgupta. 1928]

Girish’s Preference To Mythical Dramas

The leaning of Girish toward the yatra environment is revealed clearly from the proportions of his writings in different categories. Most of the dramas he wrote are on historical and mythical themes – the core interest area of the Yatragoers. Girish wrote only four social dramas out of some seventy-four found in the categorised list compiled by Hemendranath as follows:

প্রফুল্ল (১৮৮৯)
হারানিধি (১৮৯০)
মায়াবসান (১৮৯৮)
বলিদান (১৯০৫)
[Dasgupta. Girish Pratibha]

The nominal proportion of the dramas Girish composed on socio-centric issues and the majority on historical and mythical issues convincingly show his preference for mythical and historical themes. His full-length historical drama, Anand Rohe, flopped dismally in 1881. The same year, Girish turned to mythological plays and found the fertile ground for his success beginning with Ravana Badh. The materials for his plays were rooted in the two epics Ramayana, and Mahabharata besides Puranas and Jatakas. some historian thinks the popularity he gained “was due to the blending of the religious and the supernatural, the humanization of the divine and the elevation of man to a high moral and spiritual level”. He also thinks the “predominant note in his social plays is sadness and pessimism” [Mukherjee]. None of these qualities goes with the progressive ideas but contradicts them ideologically.

Hidden Passion For Rhetoric

The never-ending passion for rhetoric and the episodic grandeur of yatra as opposed to the prosaic minimalism of modern theatricals was the basic tenet for Girish for being alienated from the progressive movement toward attaining a modern stage for Bengali dramas. The reason why the antithetical stand of Girish remained unnoticed might be explained by the charisma of Girish that affected the minds of Bengali intelligentsia through generations. His public image was built primarily on account of his brilliant rhetorical stage performances and the applauses and tributes by luminaries and celebrities like Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Sister Nivedita, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Keshav Chander Sen, Chittaranjan Das, J. C. Bose, and so many others.  Some historians too agreed with the public opinion that “Girish was rightly called the Father of the Bengali Stage because of his tireless work to set the public theatre on a sound footing.” (My emphasis) [Mukherjee]

Girish In The Eyes of His Fans

Girish was appreciated as an amazing genius by the people including the audience, press and the mass fed with borrowed information. Hardly any of them attempted to critically review his achievements and contributions to the making of the Bengali stage. None were too keen to go beyond their visual experience into analytical and comparative studies risking their prejudgement of Girish as the ‘Father of Bengali Stage’. The epithet hardly makes any sense since Girish was never a party to the movement for bringing about the modern democratic public theatre to stage Bengali drama. Rather, he opposed from outside such an endeavour at every stage of its development, believing their idea of National Theatre was materially unachievable. Hemendranath in his introductory notes to Girish Pratibha, frankly stated how deeply the writings of Girsh swayed his thoughts, awakened in him the spirit of nationalism, and induced social religious and moral values. Hemendranath was not an exception amongst the theatre historians who spoke of Girish emotively and called him ‘The Father of Bengali Stage’. The average scholars, critics and historians shared opinionated views spread through the press and public platforms like the following out-of-proportion claims:

  • In 1877, upon watching Girish playing the double role of Ramchandra and Meghnad in the play Meghnad Badh Natak, Akshay Kumar Sarkar, the editor of Sadharani, found him equal to Garrick and called Girish ‘বঙ্গের গ্যারিক’ (Garrick of Bengal). It should have been known to the Editor that in Nil Darpan, Ardhendushekhar Mustafi played four different characters Golak Basu, Mr Wood, a Peasant, and Sabitri. Every role he played was masterly as Girish himself asserted in his tribute to Ardhendushekhar. [Girish] There is also a fascinating record of Binodini playing as many as seven different roles in Meghnad [Binodini, Endnotes].
  • On 10 February 1897, the Editor, Sadharani firmly announced their conviction that Girish was as good as Garrick or better than Garrick. He said, “We can never imagine that any Garrick would be able to act more powerfully than Bengal’s Girish.” [Dasgupta. 1928] Before accepting or rejecting his view one would need to know if the Editor witnessed Garrick on stage as well to arrive at his decision.
  • Some historians, like the opinionated public, consider Girish as a paramount genius – a fusion of many talents. Girish was “the greatest naut, the greatest actor, the greatest dramatist, the greatest amongst the creators of the Bengali theatre, and the greatest lyricist all in one. Such an extraordinary genius cannot be found in any other race in the world.” [Dasgupta. 1928] No one perhaps takes such hyperbole seriously and goes on verifying all the claims with a global perspective, except the one that undermines the local theatre history, namely, the claim that the greatest amongst the creators of the Bengali theatre was Girish. This warrants nothing less than a critical historical investigation, which will be taken up in the next part of this paper.

The spectacular performances of Girish on stage, in his preferred role of a hero, overpowered the senses of the onlookers to determine who can be called the ‘Father’ or the Originator of the modern democratic theatre – the National Theatre. The admirers of Girish, without caring to look into the history of making the National Theatre, greeted him as the ‘Father of Indian Stage’, who in reality negated the idea of a National Theatre founded by a group of penniless middle-class boys as preposterous and immaterialistic.

Endnotes

The National Theatre happened. On the first day, all tickets were sold out to the people who expected to witness new kinds of dramas, no more about kings and demons but about real living issues of men and women, performed on a covered stage, while the spectators were sitting under the open sky on iron chairs, bamboo benches, and concrete doorsteps according to the prices of tickets they paid never minding drizzles or light rains. This fantastic scenario of a National Theatre standing in the courtyard of Sanyal’s Mansions was indeed a daring reality.

REFERENCE

2 thoughts on “EMERGING BENGALI THEATRE”

  1. SUCHANDRA BARDHAN April 16, 2024 — 7:22 pm

    Such a well-researched article! Truly amazing!

    Like

    Reply
    1. (Post author)
      অযান্ত্রিক April 18, 2024 — 4:21 am

      I thank you, Professor Bardhan for your kind words. Warm regards and wishes

      Like

      Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

search previous next tag category expand menu location phone mail time cart zoom edit close