KOZHIKODE:Can every problem in society be presented through laughter? Proving it’s possible, Rangu Vidushak, a theatre troupe from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, has been making people around the world laugh, while raising voice against social issues, since 1984. Bansi Kaul, the founder-director of the troupe, has even introduced a new genre ‘clown theatre’ with the presentation of each character as clown in his plays.
Offering moments of laughter for the audience while portraying the class conflicts in society, the team staged ‘Saudagar’, a Hindi play directed by Bansi Kaul, on Thursday, at the National Theatre Festival.
“Our methodology in theatre is to interpret the problems in the social system through laugher and we call it the ‘theatre of laugh’. We look upon each production from the point of view of how laugh can be inculcated in it,” says Bansi Kaul, who has bagged the Padma Sri and Sangeet Nataka Akademi awards for his contributions to theatre. “In our plays, a clown is not represented just as a symbol of laugh, but rather he is intellectual and sensitive. The actors’ makeup, gestures and even the sets in our plays reflect the clowns,” points out Farid Basmi, theatre director and coordinator of Rangu Vidushak.
“With the present-day society missing laughter, as everyone is busy going after something, we are trying to make others laugh while making them aware of the social issues,” says Uday Shahane, an actor, who has been with the troupe since 1989.
Through comic dialogues and situations in the plays, they make people laugh and in ‘Saudagar’, the three musketeers are introduced by Shrikant Kishore to the original script of Bertolt Brecht, who observe and comment on the irregularities in the bureaucracy while making the audience laugh. Through Saudagar, the lead character of the play and a representative of the high class society who kills a lower class person during his oil exploration, the play questions the judicial system designed to help Saudagars with high economic status.
Apart from comedy, non-theatrical forms having roots in the traditional folk artforms and styles of street performers in north India is another identity of Rangu Vidushak.
“We pick up elements from the traditional art forms, the raw materials of all the contemporary forms and utilise them in our production. A little bit of acrobatics, traditional gymnastics, martial arts, street stunts and artforms like akhora and chau are often included in our plays. We also give training in music and these artforms to the newcomers of our troupe,” says Bansi Kaul.
Moreover, the actors do not look alike in all the performances of each play as they introduce a little bit of change in the makeup.
“We use colour as an element to convey emotions and change the tilt and the patterns drawn on the faces of the actors for each show. Like the emotions and the life that changes day by day, we make changes in the makeup,” points out Bansi Kaul.
Apart from Saudagar, a number of the other satirical plays are being staged by ‘Rangu Vidhushak’ across the globe. ‘Saudagar’ has completed around 70 stages, including various national and international festivals, while another play, ‘Tukke Pe Tukka’ was performed at 99 venues.