What does one mean by 'Theatre' and a 'Performance' ?

What does one mean by 'Theatre' and a 

'Performance' ?

     

              Aishwarya Walvekar

Abstract

We listen that the words ‘theatre’, ‘drama’, ‘performance’ are used very loosely in the day to day life. Most probably without understanding their meanings. Every society, its culture has its own interpretation and connotation of these terms. In India, if somebody creates a ruckus in the middle of something, they are said to be ‘creating a drama’; when literally, the word to be used is ‘performance’. Here, audiences often say that ‘we are going to a theatre to watch a drama’; when actually it should be – ‘we are going to the auditorium to watch a play’. Well! That’s us. Now a days there is an increasing use of the word ‘performance’, which needs to be thought on. A music piece, dance, live art tradition and the list goes on are called performance.

Also, due to the boom in technology and the mass media and entertainment arena opening wider, and also with the post-structuralism and post-modernism approaches, these terms have been displaced from their etymological meanings and now can be understood as narratives and genealogies. So, in this paper I would analyze ‘theatre’ and ‘performance’ and their aesthetics by giving examples that I experienced and my understanding of them as theatre and performance.

Introduction

The study of drama and theatre as academic discourses became essential as these disciplines were seen to be directly linked to and repercussions, connotations of politics, culture, society and individual as a whole. When talking about theatre and performance, ‘drama’ becomes an integral part to be discussed. In the essay Drama, Script, Theatre, and Performance by Richard Schechner, published in The Drama Review in 1973, he talks about the relationship between drama, script, theatre and performance, through his analysis of tracing the genealogy of drama and performance to the Paleolithic rituals. He argues that in the prehistoric ritual theatre ‘the act of doing is manifestation’, whereas in contemporary theatres it is merely communication. He defines and classifies drama, script, theatre and performance through a model of concentric circles. In this model, drama forms the innermost circle which is surrounded by script, enclosed by theatre. All of these are then encompassed by an ‘ill-defined’ disc of performance.

Model of Concentric circles by Richard Schechner

Explaining the model, Schechner suggests, “The increase in size is meant literally, in time/space, and conceptually in the idea-area covered. Generally speaking, though not in every case, the larger disc contains all those smaller than itself.” He explains that the sphere of theatre is of the performers and that of the performance is of the audience. Theatre is the arena where the performers actually experience the ‘manifestation’ of the drama and are into the act of ‘doing’.

He suggests the following definitions of the terms:

Drama: the smallest, most intense (heated-up) circle. A written text, score, scenario, instruction, plan, or map. The drama can be taken from place to place or time to time independent of the person who carries it. This person may be purely a "messenger," even unable to read the drama, no less comprehend or enact it.

Theatre: the event enacted by a specific group of performers; what actually occurs to the performers during a production. The theatre is concrete and immediate. Usually the theatre is the response of the performers to the drama and/or script; the manifestation or representation of the drama and/or script.

Script: all that can be transmitted from time to time and place to place; the basic code of the event. The script is transmitted person to person and the transmitter is not a mere messenger; the transmitter of the script must know the script and be able to teach it to others. This teaching may be conscious or through empathetic, emphatic means.

Performance: the broadest, most ill-defined disc. The whole constellation of events, most of them passing unnoticed, that takes place in both performers and audience from the time the first spectator enters the field of the performance-the precinct where the theatre takes place-to the time the last spectator leaves.

Every culture and society have their own regulations and rules arbitrary to the person living in it. The performance space is not devoid of the regulations as well. While, the drama materializes from the creativity of an individual, till it reaches the performance territory, it battles with it being a ‘manifestation’ and a ‘communication’. When it approaches the arena of the audience, i.e. the performance sphere, it doesn’t remain just a property of the creator or even the performers. The audience are free to assimilate it and retort as they wish.

In the reviews that will follow, I will explain and distinguish between theatre and performance by taking into consideration the common elements used in them like the text, scenography, acting and audience and how they deviate while travelling from the province of theatre and performance.

Theatre

The theatre that I am going to discuss in this review is a closing ceremony of an International Theatre Festival – Bharat Rang Mahotsav organized by the National School of Drama in the year 2017 in Delhi. The closing ceremony, as most of them are, was formal. A few VIP s on the dice delivering speeches and an emcee conducting the ceremony. (It is also ironic how we call it a closing ‘ceremony’, a term which is close to terms like ritual, rites, etc.)

A delegate from the Cultural Ministry of India, director of NSD Vaman Kendre, well known director and also one of the board members of NSD Rattan Thiyyam were present. Vikram Gokhale, a renowned Marathi actor was invited as the chief guest. The delegate from the Cultural Ministry talked about how important theatre is in the society and how platforms like these festivals and institutes like NSD help generate more audience and involve and develop an interest for theatre among the youth. Vikram Gokhale too, talked about the essentiality of theatre in society and romanticized the idea of being an actor (to mention from his introduction given by the emcee – his family comes from theatre and film background). His speech was highly motivating and inspiring, also to some extent moving. There was a formal felicitation that took place and then a short break was taken which was followed by some music performance.

Text

The text of this staged ceremony must be somewhat scripted and written before the ceremony took place. As most of the performers (VIPs in this case and the emcee) were reading out from a piece of paper. We can hence argue, that the ‘act of doing’ here displaces itself from manifestation to communication.

The text read out and at times faked as being performed by the performers was too formal and meant only to communicate with the audience than being performed and to share any catharsis. Though the same cannot be applied to the speech given by Vikram Gokhale, whose speech was charged with emotions.

Scenography

The closing ceremony was staged at the Kamani Auditorium, New Delhi on a proscenium stage. The backdrop being black with the flex of the festival and a few instruments arranged on the side for the musical performance that was to take place later. The performers were seated on chairs arranged in the foreground of the stage. There was a podium on the left of the stage, with the emblem of NSD on it, for the speakers and the emcee to deliver their speeches from.

The performers were moderately dressed. Vaman Kendre wore his usual cotton kurta with a half jacket. Rattan Thiyyam followed the same with a full black kurta and half jacket with a black shawl.The delegate from the Ministry of Culture came in a casual shirt and pant. Vikram Gokhale wore a silk kurta. The emcee wore an elaborate saree and was decked up for the ceremony. The stage was generally lit.

Acting

As a formal ceremony, a kind of a ritual after any formal theatre festival, the performers did a good job acting out their parts by delivering formal speeches – thanking audiences for joining the festival, delivering inspiring speeches to charge the upcoming talents and also to thank the fund raisers. 

Audience

The audience received the closing ceremony well (as they do in the given arbitrary norms by their society). Clapping and expressing their happiness and emotions after every speech or may be just as a formality. Demographically speaking, the audiences comprised of people from the theatre circles of Delhi, reporters and journalists who had come to report the event, actors and directors of the plays that were performed throughout the festival, students of NSD and theatre enthusiasts.

Performance

Meanwhile, during the break, I came out of the auditorium to have some chai. After 20 minutes or so, probably when the performance began in the auditorium and I was still outside when I saw a person, in his twenties, running out of the auditorium. He was followed by a bunch of students from NSD, whom I am acquainted with. For a moment, I couldn’t understand what was happening. Initially, it felt like they were kidding around, but as I watched closely, this man was being hit by the bunch of boys. He was even thrown by the angry bunch on the main road and they hit him there. And he was smiling and laughing, like nothing of the hits and the blows affected him. He was mumbling something. After a while, the security stepped in and calmed down the angry boys and took that man away. Later on, a police complaint was filed against him by NSD officials.

The boys from the angry gang, weirdly, had fun beating up that man. They were laughing and took lot of interest in describing what happened. When they approached me near the chai stall, I enquired about what happened. The story which unfolded left me speechless. This man in his twenties, whom I had seen at the chai stall briefly asking for his coffee hurriedly (which I recalled later) had gone inside the auditorium with his coffee (eatables are not permitted inside the auditorium). Supposedly, he was told by the volunteers not to have coffee inside the auditorium. To this he had replied saying, ‘Mein hero hu. Mein kuch bhi kar sakta hu. Tumhe jo ukhadhna hai ukhad.’ (I am a hero. I can do anything. Do whatever with me, I don’t care.) Things got heated up when he said the same things to a female volunteer and then the bunch of boys dragged him out of the auditorium and the rest followed. While dragging him out of the auditorium this man was laughing loudly saying, ‘Mera kuch nahi ukhadh paye. Mein hero hu.’(You couldn’t do anything to me. I am the hero.) Repeatedly, he kept on saying this throughout the ruckus.

Taking this incident as a performance, as he was the part of the audience and received the closing ceremony as a communication, I think he felt it important to form a two way communication and gave a feedback in his own way. Let us analyze the elements of his performance:

Text

It surely wasn’t a scripted performance. It may have come as a reaction to the speeches he heard at the closing ceremony. His dialogues were improvised on the stop and manifested what he truly felt.

Scenography

The scenography too was accidental. Though he chose to emote his reactions in the auditorium itself. The audience for his performance then chose to react on it and brought his out of the auditorium. Hence, we can say that the scenography was merely accidental and circumstantial. The performer wore a normal T-shirt and jeans and his audiences, who later on became a part of his performance, wore casuals like him.

Acting

After being a witness to the incident, the first word that came to my mind was ‘hysteria’. The man was hysterical in his approach. As if, he had to say whatever he wanted to say now, hoping that it would change his conditions. May be the frustration of being a struggler in the acting field for long might have acted as a catalyst for his reactions. The contrast between the angry bunch of boys hitting him and him simply laughing at them and challenging and provoking them by saying that ‘I am the hero. You cannot do anything to me’ was hysterical.

Audience

The audience for his performance was scattered. Firstly, it was the volunteers in the auditorium where he was sipping on his coffee. Then when he was being dragged out of the auditorium, the whole premises of the auditorium space and also the street was his audience. The kind of ruckus that he created with his performance attracted everybody’s attention, from the guards to the volunteers to the common people on the street. The audience was thrilled to watch it. Firstly, they thought it was just a brawl that broke up among some students. But when the NSD volunteer students narrated the incident, everybody was left questioned. 

Conclusion

The contemporary theatre is becoming more and more redundant in order to preserve the originality and authenticity of the drama and/or the text. One has to keep in mind that the theatre has to evolve and not change with times. As far as a performance is concerned, any action that one does can be termed as a performance and it might have its own aesthetics.

Considering, the two examples taken in consideration for theatre and performance, we have seen how the text is fixed or prepared before-hand for a theatre, whereas, for a performance it may be improvised. (Same cannot be said about performance artists, who stage their performances with a particular focus in mind. They may orchestrate their texts beforehand). A performance can also be totally mute, with no text (so can be a mime theatre). The scenography for a theatre is determined by the directors and stage management, the performers of their make-up, costume etc. In a performance, which can be an instant reaction, even the performer may be unaware that he/ she is performing. In a theatre, the acting is practiced and rehearsed and the actor knows what to emote where (we can see this as a controlled environment of emotions, where the performers too are bound with certain norms). As Schechner points out in his essay that I referred to in the introduction, the contemporary theatre ‘communicates’ with its audiences. In case of performance, the performer doesn’t act for the sake of it, but essentially witnesses and manifests the ‘act of doing’. It affects him emotionally, mentally, physically and psychologically. Taking into account the audience in both the spheres, they may react differently. When an audience knows that they are witnessing a theatre, they are prepared to take on the events to unfold; to listen, to see, to hear to things they agree or disagree with. Despite of disapproval, the audience stays put in their chairs. True, that they might as well not clap or stand to appreciate the performance, but that’s a sophisticated way of expressing a disapproval. In other words, we could say that the audience for theatre is very exclusive. When we consider the audience for a performance, it is very inclusive. Firstly, the audience may not know that they are witnessing a performance. They are just aware that the happening is not usual, which grabs their attention. In the domain of performance, the audience can directly, indirectly engage with the performer. The performance domain almost diminishes the lines between the audience and the performers which are so strictly followed in the theatre.

Another important aspect that emerged while studying the two examples was that of certain societal norms. For example, taking a coffee inside an auditorium. For hygiene and cleanliness purposes, eatables are not allowed inside the auditoriums (But the cinema halls allow eatables. Here comes into picture the dynamics of economy for theatre and film). Some attach the sense of sacredness to the auditorium as closing ‘ceremony’ is being performed, or even a performance space is being considered sacred.

The most disturbing and also hysterical element that came out of the review is the affect that these inspiring speeches have on the audiences. Despite of the marked lines of differentiation between the stage and the audience and constant pin pointing of hierarchies in the audience space too, the audiences are affected by the theatre space. The psychology of the man who went on to create a ruckus was affected by the speeches (though, in a negative way). His performers affected the psychologies of a bunch of students in the frameworks of the societal norms. I was left wondering though, when one of the individual from the angry bunch will enter into the struggling period of his acting career, will he remember this hysterical man and for once keeping aside the communicative societal norms feel sorry about hitting him and manifest.

Sources

·         DRAMA/THEATRE/ PERFORMANCE by Simon Shepherd and Mick Wallis published by Routledge; ISBN 0-203-64517-0 Master e-book ISBN

·         Drama, Script, Theatre, and Performance by Richard Schechner published in The Drama Review, 1973