Abstract
Victor Turner argues that social life is continually being rewritten as a consequence of an ongoing struggle between ‘indeterminacy ‘(i.e., the wish, the possibility, that which ‘could be ‘or ‘should be’) and ‘all modes of determination ‘(i.e., the normative structure which attempts to bind society or parts of it into a harmonious whole).1 In the struggle, theatre as an ‘explanation and explication of life itself’2 functions as a reflexive tool that serves as ‘the drawing board ‘to sketch out ‘more apt or interesting “designs for living”.’3 Informed by Turner ‘approach to theatre, this essay discusses contemporary theatre in Bangladesh with the following objectives: (i) to examine the terrain as a representation of performance in non-theatrical contexts that are ‘designed to maintain, modify, or overturn the existing social order;’4 and (ii) to scrutinize it as an insidious and invisible politico-aesthetic tool, which operates in the liminality of theatrical contexts ‘outside or on the periphery of everyday life’5 and seeks to reinstate or resist the performances in non- theatrical contexts by deploying the ‘imaginary ‘as a metacommentary on the ‘real. ‘The essay limits itself to the time-frame of the ‘contemporary’, an indicator that will bracket within itself the tumultuous years immediately preceding the independence of Bangladesh in 1971 at one end, and the immediate past or the first decade of the current century, at the other. It proceeds in three parts, each of which focuses on one of the following nodes: (i) narration of the nation entangled in contesting identities inscribed by language, religion, and ethnicity; (ii) mobilization of subaltern resistance against hegemony of the state and its elite patrons; and (iii) replications and transgressions in the performativity of gender.
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Notes and references
Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: Performance Arts Journal Publication, 1982), 76–7.
Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre, 13.
Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre, 24.
Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2002), 68.
Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), 47.
Mamtaz Uddin Ahmad, ‘Munir Chowdhurir Kabar,’ Theatre 5.1 (1977), 141. 137–49. Dhananjaya Dash, Āmär Janmabh ümi: Smrtimay Bangladesh (Kolkata: Muktadhara, 1971), 74.
Badruddin Umar, ‘Language Movement,’ in Sirajul Islam, ed., History of Bangladesh 1704–1971, Vol. 1, Political History (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 1992), 437. 422–61.
Mamtaz Uddin Ahmad, ‘Munir Chowdhurir Kabar,’ Theatre 5.1, 141. Dhananjaya Dash, Ämär Janmabh ümi: Smrtimay Bangladesh, 74.
Piene Macherey, A Theory of Literary Production, trans. Geoffrey Wall (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), 84.
Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre, 75.
Homi K. Bhabha, ‘Introduction: Narrating the Nation,’ in Homi K. Bhabha, ed., Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990), 1. 1–7.
Homi K. Bhabha, 2.
Rehman Sobhan, ‘Economic Basis of Bengali Nationalism,’ in Sirajul Islam, ed., History of Bangladesh 1704–1971: Vol, 2, Economic History, 709–10. 706–80.
Mahmud Shah Qureshi, ‘Literary Assessments of Tagore by Bengali Muslim Writers,’ University of Toronto Quarterly 77: 4 (2008), 1144. 1133–52.
A theatre group founded by Ramendu Majumdar, a theatre artist of international repute.
Willem van Schendel, ‘Who Speaks for the Nation? Nationalist Rhetoric and the Challenge of Cultural Pluralism in Bangladesh,’ in Willem van Schendel and Erik Jan Z ürcher, eds., Identity Politics in Central Asia and the Muslim World: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Labour in the Twentieth Century (London: LB. Tauris, 2001), 108. 107–47.
Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre, 12.
Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre, 76.
Although not directly related to the Indian Theatre of Roots, Selim al Deen ‘plays and the theatre idiom that they produced in performance may be said to belong to a pan-Asian trend. According to Suresh Awasthi, “Theatre of Roots ‘developed in India in the mid-1950s ‘as a result of modern theatre ‘encounter with tradition ‘and was ‘inspired by a search for roots and a quest for identity ‘(‘“Theatre of Roots:” Encounter with Tradition,’ The Drama Review 33. 4 (1988): 48–69). He also argues that the search for ‘roots ‘was pan-Asian in character. About the same time as in India, directors in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan began to seek ‘liberation from Western realistic theatre ‘and, ‘by utilizing the rich theatrical heritage of their respective countries, evolved a style in tune with indigenous values and aesthetics ‘(Awasthi 1988: 48–9).
Helen Gilbert, ‘General Introduction,’ in Helen Gilbert, ed., Postcolonial Plays: An Anthology (New York: Routledge, 2001), 1. 1–7.
Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1918), 16.
Nagorik, Program Note to Tagore ‘Achaläyatan, published on the occasion of the play ‘premiere (Dhaka: Nagorik Natya Sampraday, 1980), author ‘translation, n.p.
Muthal Naidoo, ‘The Search for a Cultural Identity: A Personal View of South African “Indian” Theatre,’ Theatre Journal 49.1 (1997), 34, fn 13. 29–39.
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The root of the schism goes back to the question of succession after the death of the Prophet in AD. 632. Some believed that Ali (the Prophet ‘cousin and husband of his daughter Fatima) was the rightful and legitimate heir to the Islamic caliphate. However, Ali had to wait his turn because three other companions of the Prophet — Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman — succeeded the Prophet one after another. His reign as the fourth caliph was short-lived, for he was murdered in 661. Mu’awiya succeeded him and the capital was shifted from Medina to Damascus. Mu’awiya’ succession marks the beginning of the Umayyad dynasty and the shift of the Islamic state from theocracy to autocracy. His succession also marks the intensification of a schism in the Muslim community because Ali’ son Hasan claimed the caliphate. Eventually he abdicated in favor of Mu’awiya but reserved the right to succession (after Mu’awiya ‘death) for himself. However, Hasan was poisoned through Mu’awiya’ son Yazid ‘conspiracy in 669. After his brother ‘death, Hosain persisted in his efforts to claim the caliphate. Offered support by the people of Kufah (a city near Baghdad), Hosain set out with his family and a group of followers for the city, hoping to fight Yazid. However, before Hosain could anive, Yazid ‘men had captured the city. Vastly outnumbered, Hosain and his men lay in a state of siege on the plains of Karbala (north of Kufah), cut off from any source of water for ten days. A battle was fought on the 10th of Muharram (October 10, 680), in which Hosain lost all his men and was himself killed. Hosain ‘martyrdom at Karbala gave rise to the Shi’ah sect (literally, ‘the partisans’, here ‘the partisans of Ali’).
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Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838–1894) is a most renowned nineteenth-century Bengali novelist and the author of Vande Matarm whose first two verses were given the official status of the ‘national song ‘of the Republic of India in 1950.
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The phrases are Victor Turner ‘(Ritual to Theatre, 76–7).
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Group Theatre is a mode of theatre production, which being neither professional nor commercial, experiments in theme and style with a view to highlighting social messages. In post-Independence Bangladesh young artists formed theatre groups to represent the values and ideals of the Liberation War through their productions often inspired by the group theatre movement in Kolkata during the 1940s and even later.
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Rahman Chowdhury, ‘Bānglādeshe Bigata Panchāsh Bachharer Nātyacharchā (Theatre Practice in Bangladesh in the Past Fifty Years),’ Bangladesh Asiatic Society Patrikā 20. 2 (2002), 41, 45–6. 23–68.
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Hussian Muhammad Ershad is a former military dictator and President of Bangladesh, and is currently the Chairman of Jatiya Party.
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Such set props (or set properties) are the movable objects used in a theatre set that are not built into the set. Usually, the set props include chairs, tables, rugs, appliances, barrels, trunks, or large rocks.
Judith Butler, ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution,’ 528.
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They are three of the five women from the Hindu mythology, the other two being Arundhati and Savitri, who embody ideal/traditional Indian womanhood by virtue of their fidelity and self-effacing service to their husbands.
Believed to be an incarnation of Lord Krsna, Caitanya is a 16th-century Bengal-bom saint still worshipped in eastern India and present-day Bangladesh. He preached universal love, initiating a spiritual movement against the age-old barriers of casteism.
Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay, is a famous mystic of 19th-century Bengal/India who broke the barriers of orthodox Hinduism and preached the possibility of realizing God through multiple faiths. His chief disciple, Swami Vivekananda, founded the Ramakrishna Mission to propagate his thought and serve humanity.
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Girish Chandra Ghosh is a famous 19th-century playwright, director and actor whose play Caitanyalila, with Binodini in the role of Caitanya, was staged at the Star Theatre on 20 September 1884. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa came to watch the play.
For details, see Syed Jamil Ahmed, ‘Hegemony Resistance, and Subaltern Silence: Lessons from Indigenous Performances of Bangladesh,’ 70–86.
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Victor Turner, (1990) ‘Are there universals of performance in myth, ritual, and drama?,’ in Richard Schechner and Willa Appel, eds., By Means of Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual (Cambridge, University of Cambridge, 1990), 17. 8–18.
Karl Marx, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,’ in David McLellan, ed., Karl Marx: Selected Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 318.
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Ahmed, S.J. (2014). Designs of Living in the Contemporary Theatre of Bangladesh. In: Sengupta, A. (eds) Mapping South Asia through Contemporary Theatre. Studies in International Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137375148_4
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