68 year old Kannada playwright, director and activist Prasanna has been leading a life of activism since more than 2 decades. He has made considerable efforts for raising awareness towards need for ecological sustainability, economic equity, participative grassroot democracy and other socialistic ideals.
An IIT-Kanpur dropout, Prasanna joined NSD, inspired by B. V. Karanth. During Emergency he used theatre for activism in rural areas. He has also been instrumental in establishment of a rural women’s cooperative, ‘Charaka’, a case study studied at IIMs. Recently he has used Gandhian methods of Satyagraha, including hunger strikes and padayatras for raising issues of handloom workers, farmers, migrant workers and recently about GST on handmade products. He recent Kannada production, ‘Taayavva’ introduced religious elements in an adaptation of Gorky’s ‘Mother’.
In this video from ‘World Forum’ discussion session at National School of Drama during 20th Bharangam, Prasanna speaks out against what he feels is the marginalisation of the theatre artist in hinterlands of India due to the influence of ‘new’ changes in visual language of theatre, adopted by our ‘intellectuals’ without understanding the wider implications, aggravating the marginalisation of local theatre players.
Prasanna seemed to take forward his ideas expressed in International Theatre Festival of Kerala 2019 where he lamented the imitation of machine-made entertainment and decreasing reliance on spoken word under influence of western modernity. He emphasized on the smallness of theatre to be essential for its ‘beauty’.
Even veteran theatre artist Arundhati Nag, who runs Bangalore’s Ranga Shankara noted that ‘language’ can not be set aside in plays, while adding her observation that the metros are blurring the individual identities of our youth, who struggle to speak their regional or local languages.
Malayalam theatre artist Narippatta Raju also praised minimalism while adding that the scenography in several new-age plays in Kerala have become ‘needless extravaganza’ with several visuals being ‘bad and reactionary’. It is quite possible that they were alluding to the radical and disruptive work of the torchbearer of such innovations- Deepan Sivaraman, especially in Khasak and Cabinet of Caligari, both with loud and dark scenographies.
These views were countered at ITFOK by Neelam Mansingh, who argued that the written word is just the starting point of a long improvisational journey and that theatre should not fear mixing global currents with ‘Indian culture’.
While the idiosyncratic suggestions of the ‘simple’ Gandhian might not be bearable for some modern theatre artists (judging from the severe backlash he’s faced from several quarters), the substantial points of his arguments need to be adopted by them to for greater relevance in context of the major problems affecting Indian communities, instead of being limited by the fantastical visions made possible by the technological advancements.
