Day 13

20^th July 2019

1. Today, we were joined by Sunil Shanbag for a session on the use of music in theatre. Sunil Shanbag is a Bombay based theatre director, screenwriter and documentary film-maker. He is well known for his innovative use of music and dance in his performances. We began the day by watching clips of traditional theatre forms in India where music plays a strong role—Kattaikoothu, Yakshagana and Nautanki. Each of these performances had lilting musical notes right through and the scene was performed in relation to this. 

2. Sunil discussed the significance of music in these performances as it allows for a certain level of playfulness leading to the energy and thus the ambience of the performance. He showed us how music, in these performances, helps escape a certain formality by breaking the fourth wall. The pitch and tone of the music varies through the performance, allowing for a constant shift in the interaction level of the performers with the audience. He discussed this in relation to his own adaptation of Brecht’s Threepenny Opera and how Indian theatre at its very core is highly Brechtian. He showed us how traditional Indian theatre constantly shuttles across the fourth wall, and how the audience is so attuned to this which is unlike any theatre in the West. 

3. Then, we were shown clips of Sunil’s own productions where he discussed the specific elements of some of these productions and how they came about. Some of these performances included Club Desire (an adaptation of Carmen), Cotton 56, Loretta, Maro Piyu Gayo Rangoon (a Gujarati adaptation of All’s Well That Ends Well), and Stories in a Song. He pointed out that music often dictates the manner in which a production is presented, and also the way scenes can be presented. He showed us how, in each of his own productions, music played a vital role in deciding not just the tone of the performance but also the content in many cases. For example, in an adaptation of Carmen—Club Desire—the centrality of the music in the opera is adapted to a night club in Bombay. The differences in the characters and their relationships is brought out through their different approaches to music. Sunil spoke about the manner in which he came about music for each of these productions and their specific roles in them. He told us it was important to note how music occupied its own space in each of these performances and also shared his journey from using music on stage to using live music and performing almost musical plays. He showed us how he used plays in different contexts and languages by allowing the music to be the binding factor. Be it his play at the Globe, or his English rendition of the Goan Tiatr, he showed us how vital a role music has always played in his productions and how it allows for a crossing of cultural boundaries. 

4. He thus brought us to realise how music can be used in multiple ways to not just aid performance, but to become, perhaps, the backbone of the performance. He discussed the relationship between music and theatre further by pointing to how his own work used the two to cater to both extremes of audiences—one with a keen ear for music, and one with a critical eye for theatre—tailoring the performance to suit the expectations in each case. He also showed us how in each case there was a specific intent to the use of music and why this was important; he said it helped determine how the music influenced the audience. 

5. Finally, he gave us a task to listen to a piece of music and come up with a moment or a scene of our own based on ideas that the music evokes in us. Sunil believes music plays a different role in each performance, and sometimes this happens by allowing the music itself to dictate its role in the performance. He asked us to use this as a starting point and devise a piece of our own to one of the tracks we were given: Ann Cleare’s Dorchadas, In the Woods, Jean-Miche Basquiat’s Gray and Fatima’s Theme. We were to allow the music to dictate our reaction to it and thus lead this piece. 

Questions Considered:

1. How can music be used differently depending on the kind of audience it is catering to?
2. How can one go from allowing music to be an accessory to becoming a key dictator of a performance?
3. What is it that music adds or does to a specific piece?