Do we need a theatre of violence or a theatre of civility?

                Do we need a theatre of violence or a theatre of civility?

I was once an aficionado of Edward Bond, the leading pioneer of British political theatre who believed in exposing contemporary social evils and finding solutions to remedy them. In Bond’s view, one of the striking phenomena of contemporary reality is violence and Bond felt impelled to present violence on stage that would have a cathartic effect on the audience and purge them of violent emotions. Bond’s theory on violence reminded me of a Tamil proverb that a thorn can be removed only by a thorn. In an article to The Critic, in 1968, Bond made a startling observation:  ‘Critics have been forced on to the theatre by the peculiarities of modern social living, and the danger is that they will damage the theatre by clinging to their old, informed, cultured, civilized,  balanced standards. These standards and the whole culture that gave them meaning died forty years ago.’ Hence Bond’s initial attempt was to write problem plays that reflected the problems of the seamy side of the society. He followed this with his answer plays to provide clear and practical solutions. His final objective was to create a ‘socialist society’ with an optimistic slogan ‘the future is pleasurable’. Contrary to Bond’s criticism of civilized norms  and culture as of no relevance in modern times, the events that have followed have only generated heinous violence not only on ideological opposition but also in society that has promoted gun culture.

I was in UK in the ‘70s when Bond came up with his plays. His predecessors were Samuel Beckett who pioneered the Theatre of the Absurd and Harold Pinter who along with along with a few British playwrights brought a new dramatic genre –the Comedy of Menace, which are basically plays of domination and submission where people defended themselves against a powerful force, an unknown menace or intrusion and subjected themselves to a controlled or monitored existence. The Theatre of the Absurd on the other hand dealt with man’s reaction to a world apparently without meaning, logic or reason, where he is compelled to exist almost as a puppet controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces that is best designated as The Absurd(because these forces are beyond human understanding). It was at the same time there came the emergence of the Angry Young Man in John Osborne’s writings and the rise of the Kitchen sink school of drama. I had the opportunity to  experience the British cultural churning  that was evident in the Kitchen sink realism in theatre, art, novels, film and television plays, of the 1950s and 1960s, which under the garb of social realism  depicted the domestic situations of working-class Britons living in cramped rented accommodation and spending their off-hours drinking in grimy pubs, to explore social issues and political controversies.  The language of the new theatre was free of all middle class inhibitions, crude, cheeky, vulgar and often took recourse to tabooed four letter words.

As I look back on these theatre movements that shook the English (and European) stage, my admiration for and fascination with Bond’s plays have evaporated. For one thing, the result has been disastrous for the King’s(the Queen’s) English as the writings of this period displayed( and continue to display) a total lack of civility in dialogue and  a free use of porn that had no literary or artistic value other than to promote sexual desire. Language in the earlier times from the Classical period  to the Victorian age enclosed within the boundaries of rational and logical discourse the orderliness of the society and the essentials of human experience that enhanced the supremacy of the word. But the present retreat from the ideal concepts of beauty and truth in art and literature into the ‘ugly realities of contemporary life that sympathized with working-class people, particularly the poor’ has resulted not only in the corruption of language but along with it the corruption of human behaviour and conduct. It is a fact that we in India follow the West even if our borrowed effort is late by half a century. The ugliness of stage actions, the violence like stoning a baby to death by hooligans in Bond’s play Saved and the use of language lacking in culture, decency, delicacy and manners-in short the dehumanization of art and culture of the 1960s in Britain has found an echo on our Indian stage. I was a little disconcerted to read a news item on recent women’s theatre where women have taken to staging actions of women’s attempt at depilation and shaving off hair, exhibition of the physical act and agony of giving birth, their self indulgence in physical touch of the body and then trying out dresses that encourage male gaze-actions that are basically for private and not for public viewing. This is done in the name of stark realism to provide the catharsis for voyeuristic pleasures of the opposite sex.  It is not prudery that makes me comment on such theatre presentation but it is my anxiety and concern for the crass tendency to abandon the elevation of all the energies of mind and to reduce everything to the lowest possible bathos. The Spanish writer Jose Ortega Y Gasset in his book The Dehumanization of Art discusses this trend in presenting realism on several counts saying(1) it tends to dehumanize art (2) it is essentially meant to be ironical (3) it seeks to regard art as a thing of no transcending consequence (4) it cautions us to beware of sham and hence to aspire to scrupulous realism. The question arises as to which among many diverse realities is the real and authentic one- the romantic reality of beauty or the classic reality of order, harmony skill and completeness or the contemporary reality of the numerous marginalized crowd at the fringe of society, who ‘think too little and talk too much’?  No conception of reality is absolute and at best the writer or the artist should aspire to something that is practical and normative. The reality that an artist presents has to be a ‘lived’ reality and it should be human to enable us to be human. Ortega concludes ‘among the realities that constitute the world are ideas. We use our ideas in a ‘human’ way when we employ them for thinking… The idea, instead of functioning as the means to think an object with, is itself made the object and the aim of thinking.’

                             Scrupulous realism has in some way compromised with acceptable standard of living, propriety, modesty and morality (I hear echoes of rumblings as to who sets the standards and my answer is standards that exalt our thinking, imagination and conduct). Realism that is in display in contemporary art, theatre and literature tends to provide the viewers/audience with ‘observed’ rather than ‘lived‘ reality. The artist/writer does not live the reality and what is portrayed is the reality s/he has observed. When ideas are employed in an inhuman way it dehumanizes society and people.  There has to be a magnificent impulse in art and literature that propels us to see life in all its splendour. Those who argue that it is an illusion to think of life in all its grandeur, it is to be pointed out that the removal of majesty, nobility, dignity, loftiness and sublimity in our talk and action will deny us  the quality of elevation of mind and exaltation of character, ideals  and conduct. What we see today is the attenuation of elegance, lustre, solemnity and stateliness and the glorification of squalor, meanness, poverty, ordinariness and tawdriness. We have taken realism down to its lowest ebb and all that we see, hear and experience has brought forth dehumanization.

It is almost 50 years today after the establishment of the Kitchen Sink school of realism in Britain that we see its repeat on our political stage. In action, gestures, mannerisms and language, in the context of meticulous attention to squalid realism that has come to be associated with aam admi, there is a similar descent to abysmal depths in the use of language, gestures and action by political leaders of all stripes. The political leaders have become crafty expounders of chicanery using sly and evasive language, false reasoning and artful subterfuge of impractical promises to deceive people. Charges and counter charges fly thick and fast against all opponents with no shred of evidence to support them.

But to name the current political theatre as the theatre of the Absurd betrays a woeful lack of understanding of that genre. The Absurd signifies meaninglessness of existence and the pitiful effort of human beings to extract meaning from a meaningless existence. In other words, the theatre of the Absurd delineates our quest for order, logic and meaning of existence that is in itself disorderly, illogical and meaningless.  But the political theatre in the country does just the reverse. It seeks to extract disorder, illogic and meaninglessness from a Democratic Constitution that is founded upon fundamental political principles of orderly, lawful and just governance. It is also not a Comedy of Menace as domination and subjugation are tried by all the political combatants and there is hardly any invisible menace they have to fight against.

But the political theatre in India has adopted the Kitchen Sink school of realism. AAP’s advocacy of commonplaceness and ordinariness, BJP’s hectoring mockery of all its opponents and its manipulative communication are classic examples in demagoguery. Nonica Datta, an academic writes that BJP’s language has been instrumental in sanctioning the practice of violence and development. She quotes Hannah Arendt that ‘the practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world.’ Rahul Gandhi looks more restrained though his occasional jibe at BJP’s Prime Ministerial opponent as Hitler or the unsavoury language used by some of his partymen betray the use of  abusive language. What the 2014 polls till now has shown is the charges and accusations are personal attacks and all the speeches are bereft of any vision or policy for the future. Politics in India seem to be personality clashes and not intellectual debates on issues vital to the stability, growth and development of the nation.  The dehumanization of art and literature is now reflected in the dehumanization of politics and governance.

A time has come when society from art and literature to politics and governance must organize itself from low passion to higher order of seriousness and bring back civility, cordiality and courteousness to our political discourse. Ortega’s quote from the Evangelist: “Nolite fiery, sicut equus et mulus quibus non est intellectus (do not act like horses and mules that lack understanding) is the most appropriate counsel for us at this hour. Is anyone listening?