Proverbial Lie

They say, “The whole world is a stage.”  What a lie.

The experience of the world is completely different from the experience of stage. The world, with all its earthly hassles of survival and establishing an identity, moulds humans into robotic structures running the rat race. The essence of society is that it ‘dehumanizes’ the soul by restricting it inside a bag of bones, which must act in accordance with socially acceptable norms of ‘dehumanized’ human behaviour. Why do I call it ‘dehumanization?’ Let me explain.

The ‘human’ element of our lives rests in the ability bestowed upon us by biology, or the Almighty, as you choose to believe, to create. Animalistic behaviour is associated with the notion of destruction. It is fair to assume that the reverse should hold true for ‘human’ like behaviour. Hence, creativity, in a sense, defines our humanness. But then, society is unleashed on our creativity. It is not a mere coincidence that a lot of creative geniuses have had an early end to flourishing careers in music and acting owing to lifestyle choices that can be described as self-destructive, at best. Society imprisons free spirit in a manner which allows only the body to thrive, along with a battered soul which cries out for its release from bondage. That release has been sought by means of substance abuse by various creative humans in the past. Hence, the idea of ‘dehumanization’ of the soul in society.

LIGHTS!

Welcome to the stage. No rules. No holds barred. No imprisoning of the soul. Freedom to explore layers of creativity. Human.

The stage allows us to live a character. It allows creativity to be expressed through a third party, the character portrayed. It is amazing that the minute lights come on, we cease to be ourselves. We become the character. Rather, the character becomes us. Actors often feel like they are living the life of the character on stage, however, it is the character which is then living our life. Our body becomes the character’s medium of expression, and not our medium of portrayal of the character. This is the joy of theatre. The blurring of lines between the actor and the character fulfils the purpose of creativity. There is, on the one hand, expression of creativity, and on the other, negation of the dehumanization which society imposes.

The interesting bit, therefore, is the lens through which one views theatre. From the actors’ and the directors’ point of view, the stage is a world of expression. From a character’s point of view, the actor, and not the stage, is a medium of expression, while the stage is its world of existence. The stage ‘humanizes’ the character by providing it with the actors’ bodies. The actors’ souls merge with those of the character and the body manifests the energy of the two. The humanness is at its expressive best.

The whole stage is a world.

- Soutik Banerjee

Welcome to the Rangmanch

Namaskar! The Shakespeare Sabha of St. Stephen’s College welcomes you in our exploration into the various aspects of the marvellous world of the Rangmanch.

We believe that every aspect of this realm and the ones outside it can be lived in the microcosmic universe which we refer to as the stage or the Rangmanch. The Rangmanch is not merely a performance space but a sacred space where many rules of this world bow down in front of the energy of theatre. It is a space where the mundane becomes the divine and yet the notion of divinity is put under scrutiny - it is the reflection of the society and yet the champion of social revolution. It has been nourished for eons by the state and the civilization and yet from it were born the seeds of the end of those civilizations and the collapse of that state. The Rangmanch becomes the mouthpiece of the subaltern whose tongues have been uprooted – it projects what is unheard. It pulls aside the curtain of ignorance and brings truth in the spotlight. It liberates the individual from the tyranny of life and death as a character dies in a show only to live again in the next show.

The Shakespeare Sabha strives relentlessly to unravel and learn from every aspect of this Rangmanch – we work with proscenium theatre, open-air theatre, street theatre as well as experimental ventures like the currently-germinating concept of a vertical stage experiment. We believe that the Rangmanch is the Rangbhoomi – the Karmabhoomi.

Heptullah.

- Chhayankdhar Singh Rathore

Secretary (Shakespeare Sabha)