News Gallery

From Russia with love

This past week, a small team of Russian theatre directors travelled to Nepal, on invitation by the newly-established Kantipur Film Academy, for an intensive four-day acting workshop. The two theatre artists—Alexander Labedev, a theatre director, and Vladimir Solodov, a playwright—mentored the workshop, tutoring the students under Stanislavski acting system, popularly known as the System. The System is the acting method widely popular around the world today and has been adopted in Nepal as well. It chiefly deals with the actor’s conscious thought and will, in order to activate other, less-controllable psychological processes—such as emotional experience and subconscious behaviour.

Besides the classes, which I attended as well, this visit was significant in that it offered a glimpse into the current status of Russian theatre, and prompted one to draw contrast between the theatre scene there and the one here in Nepal.

There are a couple of things, as told by playwright Vladimir Solodov, which has made the Russian theatre what it is today. First, the willingness to adapt classical Russian plays on to stage, and to retain their traditional flavours. Director Solodov informed that plays by Gogol and Chekhov are still produced almost on a monthly basis in the Russian theatre circuit. Here in Nepal though, plays based on traditional scripts are few and far in between. In the last two years, there hasn’t been a single production based on the plays by Balkrishna Sama, sometimes dubbed as the Shakespeare of Nepal; while The Midsummer Night’s Dream has been staged numerous times in the same time span. Obviously, our theatre history is relatively young when compared to that of the West, and concurrently, we might have a shortage of sources to draw upon. But, it’s high time we consider resurrecting our dramatic heritage and keep producing plays based on works by playwrights of yore, such as Sama and Sarubhakta.

Majority of Russian dramas, said director Solodov, are produced putting focus on the children’s tastes, rather than of the adults, with fitting costumes and acts, so as to remind them of their rich cultural heritage. This too is a point that our theatre artists should contemplate about.

Moreover, Russian theatre artists, informed director Solodov, are paid by the state government on a monthly basis. This shows how concerned the Russian government is about preserving and promoting their dramatic tradition. Here in Nepal, we’ve got one state-owned theatre house, the Rastriya Nachghar, which boasts the largest stage of all Nepali theatre houses, and the artists working there get paid too, but their production is almost unheard of in the theatre circuit.

Needless to say, cultural heritage makes a large proportion of a country’s identity. We take pride in reiterating Buddha was born in Nepal or that we are the land of Mount Everest, but we don’t know where our arts or theatre or cinema falls on the world map. A case in point, Iran, despite the political turmoils there, is known the world over for its unique cinematic tradition, spearheaded by the likes of Majid Majidi and Abbas Kiarostami. In looking at their work, we know how it’s like living in Iran, which enhances our perception of reality and existence.

Sure, there have been a few attempts of late in our own artscape as well, despite crippling lack of resources. Director Min Bham’s Kalo Pothi gives us a glimpse of rural Karnali when the region was caught in the insurgency; similarily, Kedar Shrestha’s Maan vs Mati explores the urban Nepali life, and how it’s getting overwhelmed by the specters of technology.

“Theatre in Nepal has a huge prospective of development,” says Tanka Chaulagain, a theatre artist and an instructor. “And we are reminded of how impoverished we are while interacting with these playwrights and directors from a foreign country. We get to know how theatre there is garnering state’s support and is steady growing. But, here we have four theatre houses currently operating and none of them are operating with ease, financially. Maybe, some subsidies from the government could help boost our artists and help them grow as well.”

“We do have a state-owned theatre house, Rastriya Nachghar, and the artists there are paid as well, but their share in theatre scene in Nepal is close to non-existent,” Chaulagain went on. “Interacting with visitng artists makes the irony we live in all the more clearer.”

Nepali theatre has seen a renaissance in the past decade and the engagement between artists and audience is at an all time high. That Kathmandu now has four continuously operating theatre houses is a fact we all should celebrate. But behind the seeming rise of Nepali theatre lies the uncomfortable truth that these theatre houses are grappling with, as evinced by the recent shut-down of Theatre Village. A recent report published in these pages shows how the theatre houses currently operating are already on their knees. If the state or concerned authorities keep on turning deaf ear to this current fix, it won’t be long till the current surge of theatre activities in the city might be just a flash in the pan resigned to history.

Published On The Kathmandu Post