Thoughts on the Art of the Theatre

Thoughts on the

Art of the Theatre

Life as we see it is full and varied in its presentations, but art is fuller and richer. Life is limited by physical circumstances, but art which is the creation of mind and emotion has no limitations. Where imagination has full play, fanciful dreams are raised and we reach out to regions which life has never so far touched.

To present life in vivid reality seems to be the ideal of the play-producers. The child who puts on his father's glasses and struts about with assumed importance is lovingly styled as ‘a little actor’. The art of imitation which wins him this title is the recognised art of acting. This art is, by its very nature, closely connected with the art of the theatre, and therefore we see on the stage a craze for imitating life. The more accurate and conventional things are, the greater is the satisfaction of the play-producer: and in that feeling of satisfaction is to be seen a grave danger to the progress of art.

To use art for imitating life is narrowing its ideal and purpose. It all depends on what you go to the theatre for. If you want to see life as it is, nature as it usually exists and emotions as they are normally and conventionally expressed, go to the modern theatre and you will be satisfied provided you go to the best of its kind. There you will see faithfully represented in a historical play the dresses of that particular century, created out of the unearthed records of the period. Perhaps, if you are sensitive, some colours may jar on your eyes but you must curb your revolt, since, there, art is limited by accuracy.

The modern theatre at its best is indeed delightful; but one wonders if that is all. Life–flesh and blood life–is attractive. There is a loveliness even in sorrow. The story of a life-time is written on the wrinkled forehead of an old woman who carries on her head a bundle of firewood. The dawn of love as painted on the face of a maiden has a poetry which words could never interpret. The innocent baby-tricks, it is for the child alone to do. Life embraces all these little scenes of human existence. But there is, now and again, given to us a vision of something more wonderful than the world of life: it is the vision from the world of dreams, the vision of dancing spirits lovelier than men, the vision of colours lovelier than nature, the vision of emotions lovelier than love. To interpret these on the stage is the work of art, art that is not limited by life.

In order to release this art from the commonplace, we must aim high. We must cultivate our imagination and dwell in the abstract. Hundreds and thousands of people, weary

of heart, care-worn, down-trodden, full of longings and disappointments, go to the theatre every night. If the theatre could lift them up to the sublime regions where everything is lovely, where they see life from a higher altitude, where sorrow spreads its wings of pain only to carry them from experience to experience till at last they get the glimpse of the snowy heights of attainment: if the theatre could soothe and uplift the sorrow-laden humanity, will it not bring greater harmony in human relationship?

When the moon sheds its calm lustre on our world, our thoughts soar up higher and higher. Environment plays a large part in the making of man. The beautiful is perfect and perfection is beautiful. Why not then surround men with beautiful visions so that they will be filled with beautiful thoughts, and move, however slightly, towards perfection?

The struggle between the Spirit and the Flesh is the struggle between the beautiful and the ugly. But struggle itself is essentially inartistic. The Flesh could as well be conquered by the expansion of the Spirit. Let us fill our minds with beautiful images, beautiful emotions, beautiful thoughts, beautiful symbolism, so that ugliness is crowded out of our life. "It is in and through Symbols" says Carlyle, "that man, consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being", and the noblest age is that which can the best recognise symbolical worth and prize it the highest.

Keeping these ideals in view, the need of being ‘creative’ instead of ‘imitative’ on the stage will at once be felt. You can be realistic to a fault and never attain the sublime effect which is intended by true artists. You could present a sentiment on the stage in many ways; let us take two of these, typical of the realistic and the idealistic in art. For instance, take this idea from Omar Khayyam:

"For in and out, above,
About, below,
’Tis nothing but a magic
Shadow-show,
Played in a Box whose
Candle is the Sun
Round which we Phantom
Figures come and go."

You could present it on the stage either by dressing up a man in a Persian costume, taking, of course, good care that every fold in the dress is accurately Persian! –and flooding him with top-lights and foot-lights, make him recite these lines in front of a Persian lamp. Or you could present this idea in another way, such as this: let a huge lamp, hung from above, with fantastic figures on its sides, revolve in the centre of the stage; keep just under it, flasks of wine amidst a heap of pearls and jewels; with no other lights but the one in the centre, let there emerge people dressed with flowing, flimsy garments–never mind Persian or Arabic–and let them hungrily, blindly dance round the weird lamp, and gradually vanish into darkness. Let the words come from nowhere, so to speak, and then let the vision fade. Both these presentations, neither of them the best in their line, are, perhaps, good enough to make my meaning clear, and to speak for themselves.

Gordon Craig complains of the realistic actor: "He never dreams of his art as being an art, such for instance as music. He tries to reproduce Nature; he seldom thinks to invent with the aid of Nature, and he never dreams of creating. As I have said, the best he can do when he wants to catch and convey the poetry of a kiss, the heat of a fight, or the calm of death, is to copy slavishly, photographically, the kisses–he fights–he lies and mimics death–and when you think of it, is not all this dreadfully stupid? Is it not a poor art and a poor cleverness, which cannot convey the spirit and essence of an idea to an audience, but can only show an artless copy, a facsimile of the thing Itself?"

To produce plays of symbolic nature is by no means an easy task, even for Stanislavsky, a master at his art. "It is a hard nut to crack–the symbol’, he says, "it is successful when it has its source not in the mind but in the inner soul . . . . It is necessary to play a role hundreds of times, to crystallize its essence, to perfect the crystal, and in showing it, to interpret the quintessence of its contents. The symbol and the grotesque synthesize feeling and life. They gather in bright, courageous and compressed form the multiform contents of the role."

Symbolism is interwoven in the life-fabric of the Hindu. From the misty height of symbolism it is easy to tumble into a travesty of art. To build well and truly the structure of a new Theatre in India, are required men of the genius of Stanislavsky and Copeau, and also constructive critics of the type of Craig, men of keen perception, refinement, and intelligent imagination. To fulfill this mission, who knows, but that, even as centuries ago the melody of Krishna's flute hailed the Gopis from far and near, likewise, in its own time, the dance of Nataraja may draw together artists of the highest order!