My Interactions with Habib Tanvir : Part XII Acting, Crowd, What not to do

There were a lot of times when I would sit next to him during rehearsals. He needed a sounding board. It didn't matter who the person was. (or maybe that is not so true, let me flatter myself, probably it did matter who the person was)He would make his notes in his diary( he wrote in Urdu by the way, not Hindi or English)  as also talk to the person sitting next to him. During an 'Agra Bazaar' rehearsal,

he pointed an actor out to me and said ,' He does not know what to do with his hands, why can't the urban actors be simple as the rural actors?' I asked him what he meant. He showed me that a fairly gifted actor, a regular part of the troupe and fairly accomplished, confident person was standing there in the middle of the stage making gestures which were not economical. They were not required. Habib saab said 'These are the things which convert a strong professional performance into an amateurish one' ( I loved this, I loved most of what he told me because being a lazy actor I in any case like to do nothing with my hands and body. If the absurd plays would have been still in vogue I would have been the biggest hit, standing straight, expressionless face, no movement in hands and the rest of the body, dishing out the words written by the playwright- just kidding - it is fairly difficult to do that- express an idea to the audience through your presence and the playwright's words)

Coming back to the current story- There is a poem by Nazir called the 'Reech ka bachcha'. It is sung at a particular point in the bazaar and played out like a normal bazaar situation. 

This is the monkey dance scene though the other scene is also similar in nature.  Look at the actors. They are just standing and looking

So, in the bazaar , a handler gets a bear cub and sings to entertain while the bear cub dances a little.( I remember that in my childhood till very late when we would go from Agra to Fatehpur Sikri, there would be bear cubs in captivity with handlers for entertainment of the crowds. This has of course died out for various reasons. No body needs bears for entertainment any more and also because the animal rights awareness and legislations have pushed this practice out. You still see monkeys in captivity in India- you can see them even at Juhu beach in Mumbai. One thought connects to another thought- a visit to Fatehpur Sikri was a ride in urban solitude and a pleasant meeting with a grand piece of history standing up there in all its splendor - erstwhile seat of power combined with a center of spirituality, with the dargah of Salim Chishti, sometimes there would be 'qawwals' singing there , without mikes of course, it was an experience, you could go all the way up the panchmahal and feel the power that emperor Akbar would have felt, all that is gone now or am I just going on the path of romantic rambling qualifying to be characterized as an old man? But all the same there was a glimpse of the old Agra then, it has changed substantively in last twenty years, but more about that later, let me come back to 'Agra Bazaar' the play and what Habib saab said during one of its rehearsals)

 Everybody in the bazaar is enjoying this dance in the scene. (refer to the picture above) 'Parul' Ramchandar's daughter and 'Daniyal' Wamiq's son would wear a heavy costume and play the character of reech.

  That day I realized that in 'Naya Theater' crowd scenes or being a part of the crowd was particularly difficult. Or maybe crowd scenes are difficult anywhere in any theater. The crowd is doing nothing, an actor playing the crowd is just an embellishment to the main action, nothing else. There is a purpose to the actor which she performs. So, for instance if you have to create a market scene because the main story is placed in the market and the main characters also belong there. You have actors who would pass or come and stand at the shop for a bit, pretend that they are buying something and exit or they would come and just hang around. All this to create the market and make it believable.However, there has to be a motive, the actor has to do something when she is passing or enters the market scene otherwise the audience can spot a dead actor from a distance. By 'dead' I mean whose presence has no energy on stage.( Though energy too is  a word which means different things to different practitioners of the art of theater) But, the actor CANNOT and SHOULD NOT do extra. For instance, if you are watching the dance as part of the crowd  and you are playing a character( decided by yourself, since you are not written in the script)who had come to the bazaar to say get something for the kitchen, saw something happen, got distracted, started seeing what was going on and then moved on when the spectacle was over to whatever you had come to do, in that case, you would just be watching the dance , not appreciating it with your hands and face and sharing it with the other actors on stage and the audience too. 

Ramcharan baba, he sang and danced with great abandon, but when it came to being a part of the crowd, he was perfect.

That started happening between two actors. Habib saab pointed this out to me and showed me the difference. The rural actors were just looking at the dance, you could see it on their faces that they were enjoying the central action on the stage and more important contributing to it. As a visual it was complete when everyone in the bazaar was so engrossed in the central action on the stage at the moment. Apart of course the 'kitabwaalah' ( the bookshop owner) 

This is the kite shop owner on stage who is with the plebeian poetry of Nazir, as agains the book shop owner, don't have that picture but he would be either sulking or looking the other way opposed to the kite shop owner's involvement

who had a very snobbish attitude towards the 'popular' or 'plebeian' culture. But the urban actors were interacting between themselves and that took away from the central action of the stage. It also took the audience attention away from the central action. Habib saab did not usually get upset but on this day he was. The reason that he gave me was that it shows that the actor while performing lacks two things- 'basic understanding of the stage action' and 'generosity' to relinquish the attention to the other actor who at that moment is taking the story of the play forward. Important to understand I guess for all those who profess themselves to be actors and story tellers. Reminds me of an earlier tip 'Do your job and get the hell out of there'.