Drama review

The Past:

Not entombed, but kept alive

By Dilshan Boange

My approach to reviewing a work of theatre is to primarily treat the performance as the text to be engaged and analysed and searching within the bounds of the performance which unfolded within a set period of time as a narrative, the background and context in which the story or the ideas conveyed, expressed, could be understood.

Could the German theatrical performance 'The Past' by Constanza Marcas staged in Colombo recently be grasped without referring to any sources which gives insights about it, was a question I asked myself when I read what the theme and style of the show is to be, in a promotional email that was sent out by Ruhanie Perera a founding members of the well-known as an avant-garde theatre company Floating Spaces.

I was tempted to read the whole of the description about the substance and content of 'The Past' provided in the email. I was tempted to watch as much as possible the online video clips of the play, of which links were also provided. But I didn't want to get too much foreknowledge of what the performance is to be.

I got a glimpse and a wisp of an idea of what it's about. 'Post Second World War Europe' was one of the central premises on which 'The Past' stands, and it is a narrative that has contemporary dance as definitive of its narrative mode; the gleanings I got told me that much, and I didn't want to probe further until I had watched the show.

Sitting in the gentle darkness in the Musaeus College auditorium, I witnessed 'The Past', which offered an appreciable freshness with thought-provoking innovation to Colombo theatregoers.

It was by no means a conventionalised story put on the boards if one thinks of how stories are brought to life in most proscenium theatre productions banking heavily on dialogue and in general verbalised communication to 'narrate a story'.

Oral discourse and dance characterised the principal narrative modality devised by the creator of this work.

Dance

And the physical agility and impressive acrobatic moves displayed by the players proved that it is a kind of theatrical narrative that requires special training and cannot simply be staged by going over a written script.

I have at times asked myself how does dance take the shape of a narrative?

When one asks, for instance ballet, this question becomes rather significant. I believe that the 'chemistry' (or the lack of it between a man and a woman can be understood to an extent by the way they dance with each other.

Our bodies do 'speak' non-verbally to our dancing partner, almost slipping past our overt consciousness. There are subtle nuances, and at times not so subtle overtures that get laced into the movement our bodies make to the beat of the music to which we adjust and make some negotiation with, in trying to balance out how to move to the music and complement with the moves of our partner.

But of course this perception of mine relates to social dancing and not the devised stylised forms of dance which are watched as performances to an audience. So what can I adduce from dancing to the subject concerned? 'Dance' like music is a language, but not based on oral or verbal output.

Concepts

There are, I have heard, entire tribal histories narrated in the form of traditional dances passed on from generation to generation among certain African tribes.

The Past is a work which combines music and dance in its scheme of 'language' to convey its ideas and create a space of communication which is not solely based on the language of speech.

The Past grapples with the concepts and realities of 'memory' as an intangible vessel that contains knowledge of events, (and possibly emotions) that have preceded the present. And the substance of the discourse behind the play as I saw it, took on a very interesting form of theorising and explication delivered mainly by the principal male narrator, which made me feel that those little monologue like speeches in the 'performance' (when treating the performance as a 'text') took on something of an 'essayistic' ingredient in the fabric of the narrative made up of diverse elements.

I couldn't help but recall, how the performance that I was watching reflected certain ideas found in the novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Czech writer Milan Kundera.

How one distinguishes the past from history is a matter that I personally learnt much about by reading works of Kundera who is an exponent in explaining how human memory helps to keep alive the past and can contribute to reconstruct the past in different ways.

And one of those ways being memorialisation through topography, where architecture, pubic monuments, become elements that seek to establish 'selected memories' of past events and thereby giving those memories the power of history which is the 'official record' of 'the past' as declared by figures of authority in a country or State.

History relies on the certainty of a 'record' which may be further elaborated as written or codified information found in an accessible form available to anyone who wants to refer to it. 'History' is thus visibly referable and also transmittable. The past, however, finds its principal premise in human memory. The past has no officially sanctioned record unlike history and must rely on the 'preservation of memory'. How does one do that? This is perhaps one of the principal probes The Past engages in at a theoretical level.

Images

A strong point made out by the principal male narrator was that memory relies on images. That it is a progression of mental images or experiences that weave together our conception of what we call the past.

There was the indisputable argument propounded that the word 'time' unlike other words, has no 'fixed image' to which it can be directly related unlike a noun or a verb.

The noun 'giraffe' or 'stopwatch' have definite, conventionally accepted, fixed, visual representations or images which directly connect with the word that defines those material objects.

The verb 'run' or 'cough' do similarly have images that will directly connect with the relevant verb. However, 'time' defies being given a fixed image and cannot be given one; contended the narrator and expounded how 'change' or 'motion' of objects, and events that have physical sequences give us a 'perception' of 'time'.

I found myself recalling lessons from undergrad days when we learnt of the linguistics theories of Ferdinand de Saussure who said the relationship between an object and the 'word' given to signify it, is a 'connection' created arbitrarily because of the human need for a 'word' to communicate about that object through 'verbal language'.

Therefore, the initial point of theorising about the connection between a word and an image definitive of that word, which The Past probed, seemed to link with the theory of Saussure by my observations.

How can time actually be perceived? If it is the motion of material objects, or observable 'change', then surely the theorem that time cannot be given a fixed image is indisputable. However, there is something which I would like to add to the argument in this regard. How can 'time' as a process of change in the world around us be observed? Quite simply through the five sensory aggregates.

The Buddha has expounded that the 'world' comes into being when it is perceived through the 'senses'. He said that 'perception is a mirage'. Therefore, no two people can claim that the world they each perceive is exactly the very same since they both must rely on their individual sense faculties and the capacity of those faculties to form a perception of the world.

What if two people in the same place standing shoulder to shoulder had two very different levels of hearing? Could a blind man claim that his perception of the world is the very same as yours?

And to further add to the argument of words which cannot be given a direct image to relate to, I would like to ask how can the word 'feeling' or 'emotion' be given an image to definitively relate to? We tend to say we 'feel' time has gone by fast or that it is moving slowly. Time, therefore, has much to do with how we also feel about it as a process of change. The psychological and emotional rendering of perceiving change around us gives 'time' added meaning.

Time, thus, I propound, cannot be perceived only via observing the change of the world around us but is also possible to grasp by observing the inner change of thoughts in our mind. Just imagine if a person is enclosed in a space of complete darkness devoid of sight, sound and smell.

Can time be said to no longer apply to that person in such a condition? Yes, if the sole criteria of perceiving time is the observation of external objects undergoing change. But if the person's thoughts can also be counted as a process of change, although intangible, then time still continues. Time after all exists only so long as human consciousness exists.

Memory

Time exists only to the living. In this regard I believe the play brought out a powerful subtext of to whom does 'memory', which is linked with 'time', really matter? For example, in the aftermath of the Second World War to whom did it matter? It certainly cannot matter to those who didn't survive that war.

Therefore, it is obvious that the memory of war in general haunts only the living, those who survived it and knew it as an experience seen first-hand; and thus the past begins to matter, and seeks means of preservation and validation, especially if it finds itself not at harmony with 'history'.

Another very potent theme the play brought out is the subject of identity. Identity can be both collective and individual and by what I discerned the play built up a mosaic of images that spoke of people seeking to gain identity to voice their individuality.

From the masked roller skaters to the numerous performers who danced as various personae such as amputees seemed to speak of how war will destroy or maim a community's sense of collective identity due to the devastation wreaked on their habitat as well as physical and mental being.

Thus a case of regaining identity through each individual's expression of his or her state of body and mind seemed the way to reconstruct a sense of community and thereby regain identity. 'Identity', as a collective statement, that also allowed for individuality. It was a statement in the wake of being deprived identity due to war.

The headless shirt and pants wearer, the dance between the man with one leg and the woman were examples to this end I felt. There were depictions of amputees seeking recognition not as victims alone but as individuals with worth as people capable of expression.

Composition

The Past was in certain respects a composition of vignette's, skits, and sketches as acts that had collective cohesion as well as individual integrity to make a series of statements that unfolded in tandem. One such 'skit' was the scenario of movie scenes being filmed as though onset.

The dynamics of switching in and out of character to the cue of the camera was done with noteworthy precision that showed the snap changes in expression. Those enactments were stimulating and showed a remarkable change of pace and rhythm to the play's narrative.

One of the most compelling acts in the form of a character, vignette came from a puny 'unmanly' boy who was in a typically teenage 'American rapper' motif being encouraged to dance but couldn't bring himself to do the moves as he showed signs of feeling inadequate.

His image represented failure. It was sad. Then towards the very end of the play this male character resurfaced in a skirt and blouse as a transformed personality and showed the delight of being liberated from a mould he had been put in to, and thus moved gently against the wind created from the draught of an industrial fan, glowing with the inner happiness of the new found mental relief.

This was one of the most touching scenarios of how an individual who felt secretly victimised finally found freedom to express his individuality.

I noticed that the audience within perceivable range at that point watched with attentive silence, possibly appreciating with empathy to the young character of tragedy who finds his strength for salvation.

For the life of me I couldn't understand why the two non-Sri Lankan ladies who sat to the left of my seat thought it a fitting scene to chuckle at and have a light hearted laugh over! To me that act had at its core the secret tragedy of those who couldn't fit in and painfully introverted due to being self conscious.

The composition of diverse elements gives 'The Past' something of a jazzy motif; assembled with numerous narrative devices it becomes a collage of motion, a rhythmic mosaic pulsing with varied voices and movements, images and sounds.

As a work of theatre it showed a unique texture as its narrative unfolded. It is a production deserving robust applause.