Author: Yu Qiuyang (Lecturer, School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Communication University of China)
Robin Dronath Tagore (1861-1941) is a world-renowned Indian cultural giant. In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for “Gitanjali”, becoming the first person in Asia to win this honor. Tagore is a writer, artist, philosopher, and educator, but he has a particularly important identity that has been overlooked by people. Tagore not only occupies an important position in the history of modern Indian drama, but also enjoys international reputation. As a Bengali, he used his mother tongue, Bengali, to create and practice plays all his life. From the publication of the first musical work in 1881 to the publication of the last dance play in 1939, his theatrical career spanned more than half a century, and he created at least 70 plays. The genres involved in the plays include musicals, poetic dramas, Dramatic poetry, symbolic drama, social drama, comedy, dance drama, etc. He is also a theater director, producer, composer, and actor. He directed, produced, and participated in many plays created by himself during his lifetime.
Dramatic arts have deep roots in India itself. The “On Dance” around the first year of AD represented the height of Indian classical drama theory, and the creation and performance of Sanskrit drama showed the exquisite art of drama in the subcontinent. In the Middle Ages, Hindu devotional culture nurtured the continuous development of local theater performing arts. Since the 16th century, the folk opera Jatra, which emerged in Bangladesh, has enjoyed a wide audience with its strong vitality. The germination of modern theater in Bangladesh can be traced back to the trade expansion of the British colonists based in Calcutta in the early 17th century. With the establishment of British colonial rule in the middle and late 18th century, theater landed in the Bay of Bengal as a colonial import. The Bengal Renaissance movement that started in the early 19th century enlightened Indian elite intellectuals to reconstruct the native traditional cultural discourse. As the leader of this movement, Bengali drama has embarked on the modernization process of building the national character of drama through self-molding, reconstruction, and adjustment, and has become the forerunner of modern Indian drama. Regardless of literature or theatre, modern Bengali drama that flourished in the 19th century was deeply influenced by Western realism, and drama has not really gained a foothold in the local area. Against this historical background, Tagore, as the spokesperson of the Bengal Renaissance, used drama creation practice as an artistic carrier for the revival of Indian culture, and made an indelible contribution to the nationalization of modern Indian drama.
File photo of Tagore and the actors who participated in his plays
1. Dramatic creation full of “feeling”
Tagore’s plays are very fruitful. Works at different stages show amazing diversity in terms of theme, plot, structure, style, rehearsal method, audience response, and aesthetic acceptance. The undeniable feature of its drama literature is “Indianity”: the implicit structure of the script is handled according to the Bengali-style folk life paradigm, and the theme plot points to the essence of the philosophy of the “Upanishads”-exploring the “infinite” in the “limited” Consummation.
In the early stage of exploration and experimentation, Tagore created musicals, drama poems, and poetic dramas, trying to interpret the humanism in Indian stories in the Western paradigm. “The King and Queen” and “Sacrifice” obviously borrow the structure and style of Western romantic tragedy in terms of scenes, complex background of action, interaction of primary and secondary plots, combination of rhyme and prose, revenge motif, spiritual monologue, and death scenes. However, this The themes and feelings of the two works are still Indian. During this period, Tagore repeatedly tried the script structure techniques and poetic style. Although the artistic style has not been formed, the theme and connotation of the play have revealed the “Indianness”. “Marini” (1896) marked a turning point in his drama creation. Tagore began to abandon the Western tragedy paradigm dominated by plot and action, and switched to a single dramatic situation and simple and direct dramatic actions. This tendency of “going to action” and “light plot” has since become the label style of Tagore’s plays. “Chitra” (1892) is Tagore’s last poetic drama to bid farewell to pure rhyme. Beginning with “Curse of Parting” (1894), he tried to replace pure rhyme with Bengali rhyming couplets, in the form of new rhyme poetry. to create. During this period, his several poetic dramas with great epics, fairy tales, and folklore as the main content shone with the light of inheritance and innovation, and performed superb aesthetic treatment of ethical issues, expressing the ethics and values of Hindu culture. In art, the characteristics of “no action”, “light plot” and “light scene or no scene” are gradually becoming clear. The internal conflicts of the characters replace the external action conflicts, creating a unique drama.
In the poetic drama “Chitra” adapted from the material of the epic poem “Mahabharata”, Chitra, the princess of Manipur, was blessed by the God of Spring and Cupid for a year of peerless beauty and won the favor of the hero Ah. Zhouna’s love. Since then, she has fallen into the contradictory choice between her false identity and her true self, and her soul has been tortured. At the end of the play, she lifts the veil, reveals her true self to her lover and confesses the truth. Arjuna accepts the real her with affection. During Tagore’s visit to China in 1924, the Crescent Society prepared a welcome banquet to celebrate his 64th birthday, and the finale program was “Chitra”. When the performance was successfully completed, Tagore, who was deeply moved, paid tribute to all the cast and crew. This incident made a good story about the cross-cultural performance of Indian drama in China.
In the middle stage of maturity and finalization, the spirit of Indian culture became increasingly clear in Tagore’s drama literature, and the drama form serving the expression of national consciousness gradually took shape. “Autumn Festival” (1908) ushered in the era of Tagore’s symbolic drama, and it is closely related to “The King of the Dark Chamber” (1910), “The Obstinate Fortress” (1912), “The Post Office” (1912), “The Cycle of Spring” (1916), ” Liberty Falls (1922), Red Oleander (1924), Journey of the Times (1932), and Card Country (1933) constitute the symbolic plays that best represent the achievements of his dramatic originality category. They abandoned the realism paradigm that was regarded as the mainstream in Bengali drama and literature at that time, and they were completely different from the traditional “reproduction” discourse standard of Western drama, and constructed a symbolic Indian narrative. In terms of themes, these dramas all reveal the positive and bright reality embodied in the Indian ideal values that exist in divinity, universal humanity, and the nature of the universe; The pace is not tight and there are occasional delays. Contradictions and conflicts do not arise from the advancement of actions, but from the conflict of ideas between positive and negative forces; in terms of structure, the division of scenes is not strictly followed, and dramatic conflicts are extremely implicit; in terms of characters, “personification” and “type” “The abstract concept of character shaping serves the allegorical or symbolic expression of Tagore’s political and cultural ideas; in art, he uses prelude and aria interludes, allegorization of time and space, and setting of narrative intermediaries to create Indian-style anti-realistic narratives.
The Lord of the Dark Chamber (1910) is a classic work embodying the essence of Tagore’s symbolic drama. The queen was eager to see the king who had been meeting with her in the dark room, but she mistakenly gave the wreath to someone else. In a palace fire, she finally met the real king, but was shocked by her terrifying image and returned to her motherland, which triggered a war among the kings for her. At the critical moment, the king of the dark room quelled the chaos and saved the queen. At the end of the play, the king invites her to walk out of the dark room together. In the light, she finds that her true love is incomparable. This is a story about a restless individual soul who undergoes spiritual practice and finally reunites with God after giving up the ego. The king symbolizes “Brahman” and the queen symbolizes “I”. The play explores the philosophical proposition of how an individual soul recognizes “Brahman” and combines with it.
In the highly creative stage in his later years, Tagore created seasonal dramas and dance dramas whose core features are the integration of poetry, song and dance. Both categories are written for the stage and are an integral part of the aesthetic cultural agenda of the Indian International University (founded by Tagore). “Spring” (1923), “The Last Rain” (1925), “The King of the Dance – Seasonal Theater Stage” (1927), “Novelty” (1930), “Song of the Slavan Moon” (1934) can be called fusion Seasonal treasures of mysticism, naturalism, ritual, festivals. They outline the eternal yearning of Indian culture for the harmonious coexistence of man and nature, and reveal the natural rhythm as the manifestation of “Brahman”—the eternal flow cycle of cosmic energy implied in the religious image of Lord Shiva, the dancing king. The roles of seasonal dramas are amazing: the sun and moon, trees, flowers, rivers and lakes, clouds, rain and dew are the real protagonists, while humans are at best supporting roles, or even just part of the scene.
In traditional Indian dance dramas, the content of performances is often solidified into stereotyped storylines without integrated dramatic plots, while Tagore dance dramas have independent narrative structures and well-organized plots. “The Priestess of the Dancing Girl” (1926), “The Chandar Girl” (1933), “Remove the Curse” (1931), “Chitra” (1936), “Unreal Game” (1938), “Shima” (1939) ) and other dramas organically integrate dance, performance, singing, mime, music and other elements, and “sentiment” is the key word of these dance dramas. The lines of the script are all libretto, and the arias are combined with dance performances, aiming at creating “sentiment”, which also reflects the traditional aesthetic spirit of classical Indian drama. “Chidra”, “Chandal Girl” and “Shima”, which are praised as “Tagore’s dance drama trilogy” by the theater circles, represent the highest achievement of his drama creation in his later years, and the themes all focus on the survival dilemma of women in the process of pursuing independence And ethical choice, embodies the respect and affirmation of the spiritual value of women. In “Chandal Girl”, a girl at the bottom of the caste fell in love with a monk at first sight. Driven by her lust, she asked her mother to use black magic to lure the monk to fall in love. When the bhikkhu lost her mind, she suddenly became enlightened and restrained her lust, but her mother was killed by magic.
Tagore profile picture
2. The drama concept of refusing to imitate
In 1902, Tagore sharply attacked Calcutta’s commercial theater, which took European drama as its standard, with his article “The Drama Stage”. He said: “The theater we imitated in Britain is a bloated behemoth. It is impossible to move it and it is difficult to send it to the door of thousands of households.” The “Scarab” of “Progressive Art” expressed a protest against the colonial theater’s tendency to follow Western models and customs. In this article, Tagore intends to liberate theater from the bondage of “other” cultural hegemony. To this end, he cited “On Dance”, highly affirmed the Sanskrit drama “Shakundala” and the folk drama Jatra, advocated the restoration of the cultural tradition of local drama, and proposed the possibility of modern drama inheriting the concept of national art.
Regarding the setting, Tagore emphasized that the drama “relies entirely on its own poetic capital”, while the realistic setting tramples on the poetic quality of the drama. He pointed out that “Dancing Theory” did not elaborate and limit the stage scenery, which is in line with the law of art. He criticized the realistic set blindly followed by urban commercial theaters, and believed that it was the “truth needed” by European talents, not the truth of art. He also pointed out that Western-style realistic sets are laborious and costly, and are not suitable for the local material conditions in India. The extravagance and extravagance lead to the form overshadowing the essence, which drags down the authenticity and purity of theatrical art.
Regarding performance, Tagore pointed out that performance as a “subordinate of poetry” is a poetic interpretation of the text, so he advocated “emotional” performance, emphasizing the “emotional” aesthetic experience caused by performance. This is exactly the embodiment of the core theoretical category of “Dance Theory”, “Theory of Sentiment”. He believes that the realism of the proscenium stage weakens the actors’ independent ability to interpret the script, and advocates freeing up the independent space for the performance and restoring the meaning of the performance itself. He also advocated Jatra’s metaphorical presentation of the stage space performance, which undoubtedly has something in common with the “drama method” performance advocated by “On Dance”.
Regarding performance viewing, Tagore advocated returning to the intuitive, perceptual, and two-way interactive viewing and performance relationship in Jatra. He believes that the audience is not a passive spectator, but an “imaginative” builder who participates in the performance, and emphasizes that the drama should be successfully completed in the “mutual trust and mutual complementation” of actors and audiences. Jatra adopts a temporary square stage in the open air. There is no physical barrier between the stage and the audience, let alone an invisible psychological barrier. This is exactly the ideal viewing model in Tagore’s mind. It is based on a deep grasp of national aesthetic psychology, and it is a refutation of the stage illusion created by erecting the “fourth wall” on the mirror-frame stage.
Aristotle’s “Poetics” believes that drama is the imitation of action, and the essence of performance lies in the imitation of action. The realism that occupied the European theater stage at that time is in line with this tradition. Different from the representational poetics system, “Dancing Theory” shifts its focus to “sentiment theory” and constructs a dramatic poetics system centered on emotional performance. Tagore praised the Sanskrit drama “Shakundala”: “Kalidasa did not put the reality of life above poetry. He did not want to describe daily life truthfully, because he himself could not be dominated by poetry.” It can be seen that he put the drama art The poetic and lyrical nature of the show is put first, and it is not in favor of the stage blindly depicting the real world. Behind this kind of concept, it can be seen that his drama view has inherited the tradition of Indian drama poetics since “On Dance”.
Stage scene of Tagore’s dance drama file picture
3. Theater practice that breaks the “fourth wall”
Tagore paid attention to theatricality, and believed that a play should be a poem that can be heard and seen after all. For this reason, he repeatedly adapted many of his plays to make them have the stage potential of telling the eyes and offering them to the ears. Seasonal dramas and dance dramas are specially made for the stage. Poems, songs, dances, and performances are not added elements, but the living soul of the theater. When introducing the dance drama “Chitra”, he emphasized that lines of poetry should be seen as written to accompany the dance performance, rather than purely for the inherent poetic quality of the words. He imagined a local theater that inherits the spirit of Indian aesthetics. This theater is based on national drama literature, deeply rooted in Indian characters and motives, plot and cause and effect, imagination and symbolism, secularity and spirituality. It does not take plot conflicts as its core inspiration. Relying on internal “feelings” rather than external actions, and finally using the source of Indian traditional culture to express the truth.
The real Tagore Theater began in 1902 as a theater experiment base with Santiniketan as its main creative field. This is a theater model that is oriented towards the construction of community culture and tries to provide alternative solutions for local theaters. It is called “Parallel Theater” because it is parallel to the Kolkata Colonial Theater, which only followed the lead of Western-style drama. “Parallel Theater” pursues a comprehensive stage form integrating poetry, music, and dance, and is committed to returning to the lyrical discourse mode, which is completely different from the Western-style stage centered on discourse language. From 1908 to 1939, through continuous transformation and innovation, the comprehensive stage form achieved breakthrough development in seasonal dramas, and finally reached harmony and maturity in dance dramas. “Parallel Theater” draws lyrical and narrative stage art techniques from Sanskrit Opera and Jatra to realize the return of traditional drama. In the later directed works, Tagore sat on the side of the stage, further breaking the “fourth wall”, forming a vertical viewing space without barriers, and creating a viewing field with a shared sense of cultural belonging.
Tagore’s plays have a strong individualistic and idealized style, and he has strict standards for acting, directing, and producing his own works. He regards creativity as the foundation of art, and his scripts seldom contain stage prompts and scene descriptions, and often explain time and space with only a few words, aiming to leave ample room for each reproduction of stage finished products. Its theater is flexible, never stuck in a rut. He is familiar with the responsibilities of each role of playwright, actor, director, producer, stage designer and composer. In actual work, he can always grasp the needs of the production, guess the needs of the audience, and make appropriate adjustments based on local resources, manpower and material resources. His theaters are always highly alert to the actual situation of stage production and the audience’s aesthetic acceptance.
The choreography of “Parallel Theater” pursues simple minimalism. During the rehearsal of “The Cycle of Spring” in 1911, the stage was decorated with real lotus flowers, reeds and leaves. Tagore said that the stage should be kept clean and fresh, only a blue curtain was allowed to represent the sky, and the royal-style prop umbrella sprinkled with mica was removed. “Parallel Theater” abandons overly realistic sets and gorgeous redundant props to make more space for stage actions, and highly image and symbolize the controllable visual elements of the stage, so that they can serve “sentimental” performances. The idea of its choreography is to create an “illusion of imagination”, which is different from the “illusion of reality” created by Western-style stages.
Tagore once criticized the performance of British actor Henry Owen, believing that the “exaggeration” of “naturalism” destroyed the “inner beauty” of dramatic art. He said: “If the audience is not influenced by British childishness, if the actor has a firm belief in himself and the Bengali script, he can sweep the expensive and useless garbage from all around the performance, and give the performance a freedom and honor. This is what the faithful sons and daughters of India should do. One thing to do.” Just because he has done it himself and been on stage several times, when he directs stage performances, he will never make rigid performance rules and fall into dogma. As a director and producer, although Tagore is a perfectionist, he can always interact easily with actors.
Tagore’s drama has injected cultural and aesthetic driving force into the construction of modern and contemporary Bengali nationality, and its unique artistic exploration has contributed to the nationalization and modernization of modern Indian drama. Tagore’s drama also has historical value for reference in the development of national drama in the post-colonial context of Asian drama.
“Guangming Daily” (version 13, May 4, 2023)
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责编：张倩 ]