Day 6

21st May 2019

Activities:

1. We began the day with an exercise on the different steps involved in the research process, which we noted to be: identification of a problem, developing a testable theory (hypothesis) from observations, charting the implications of this theory, testing this hypothesis, and, finally, rejecting/refining hypotheses. We discussed each step and the varying degrees of applicability of these steps to the playwriting process.
2. We discussed how to frame big-picture questions that allowed us to investigate concepts in an effective manner. After that, we took a few minutes to craft our own basic hypotheses and big-picture questions, which will facilitate and clarify our upcoming research efforts.
3. Then, Professor Arshia Sattar joined us for a guest lecture. After quick introductions, each of us was asked to share what we remembered about the Indus Valley civilization. Together, based on deductions pieced together from everyone’s contributions, we constructed an idea of what the civilization might have been like.
4. Then, in groups of three, we were asked to take time to write a short, ten-line story that could have taken place within the Indus Valley civilization. After writing our stories, we took turns to share them with the room, and together, engaged in discussion on each one. We looked to see whether a story was truly rooted in our construction of the civilization, whether it represented that ancient world, and whether—like any good story should be—it was interesting and complete.
5. After that, we were given copies of a dialogue hymn from the Rig Veda; the hymn was a conversation between Yama and Yami, a pair of twins. In the hymn, Yami asks her Yama to sleep with and marry her, but despite her passionate attempts at persuasion, Yama declines, telling her that society would not allow it. The hymn is purely dialogic, with little to no space dedicated to situating the conversation in a physical or temporal space. So, our task was to create a physical, emotional, and temporal space for this dialogue.
6. In our groups, we set the dialogue in different time periods and created different motivations for this conversation, and shared them with the group. We discussed each story and its approach to the text; and we noted the importance of, carefully and intentionally, reflecting the emotional moment and central conflict of the story in the construction of its emotional world.
7. Then, Prof. Sattar led a discussion on Girish Karnad’s plays “Hayavadana” (1971) and “Naga-Mandala” (1988), and analysed his skilled use of adaptation in both cases. We noted that the shifting of mediums (from fiction to theatre) as the core tenet of adaptation. For each play, we considered the source texts and the changes Karnad made in the process of shifting mediums. We discussed his ability to layer stories within stories and still manage to end them all with immense clarity.
8. We also noted that female characters were the driving force in both plays; and we talked about his use of framing devices in the telling of stories. Finally, we also spoke about Karnad’s attempts at engaging with tradition in theatre, and in writing plays that spoke to, and sat beside, traditions of regional storytelling styles, as opposed to Western structures of drama.
9. Then, we watched two different approaches to adapting the Ramayana (Shyam Benegal and Ramanand Sagar), and two different approaches to adapting the Mahabharata (B.R. Chopra and Peter Brook); and discussed the successes and pitfalls of each one. With Peter Brook’s adaptation of the epic, we had a long conversation about appropriation and whether the creation of this play was inappropriate, or whether Brook was within his rights to adapt the Mahabharata.

Questions considered:

1. How do we make reasonable inferences from limited information? How can we work within the constraints of limited information to create new material?
2. How do stories relate to and represent their worlds? How can space and time interact with, and bolster a story’s plot? How does the emotional manifest in the physical world and in temporality?
3. What is an adaptation and what is a retelling? How does one adapt old texts in ways that reorient its purpose to contemporary, even timeless, ways of thinking? What are the new questions that an adaptation is asking? How do audiences respond to drastic changes in experimental adaptations of well-known texts?
4. How does one hold tradition and modernity in their heads at the same time? Can the modern and the traditional coexist?