BADAL SIRCAR PLAYWRIGHT, DRAMATIST AND FOUNDER OF THIRD THEATRE (1925-2025)

Badal Sircar was born on 15th July, 1925 in Kolkata. He passed away on May 13, 2011, at the ripe age of 85. Right till the time he passed away, he lived in a Dickensian house in one of the many labyrinthine lanes off North Kolkata's Beadon Street. And in his final months, he taught his kind of theatre to kids of the neighbourhood.

As a young man in the 1940s, Sircar was restless, moving from a private construction company as a qualified civil engineer to lectureships, and dabbling in Left politics. He moved to Europe where he was exposed to myriad theatrical forms and styles. Sircar began writing plays from his thirties. He decided to take theatre seriously when he returned to India.

"People normally read novels and short stories and watch plays. I enjoyed reading plays in Bengali because I studied in the Bengali medium in Scottish Church Collegiate School. But, as the family's stock of Bengali plays ran out, I thought of teaching myself a bit of English. I was delighted to be introduced by my mother, the late Sarala Mona Sarkar to grandmother Virginia Mary Nandy's collection of western literature. Grandma, incidentally, was amongst India's first lady physicians and very well read," he said in an interview a few months before he passed yonder.

His father, Mahendra Lal Sarkar held the History professor's Chair at Scottish Church College. Few people are aware that Sircar was of Christian faith. This did not matter because he never practiced any religion at any point of his life. This background offers a glimpse into his mindset that could be held partly responsible towards the shaping of his radical future and his contribution to the cultural identity of theatre, "I shied away from stage shows, but was addicted to weekly radio plays. We had crystal radio sets in those years. And only two could listen to the broadcasts through headphones by turns," he recalled.

Sircar took the Indian stage by storm with Ebong Indrajit (1963) and Pagla Ghoda (1967). Ebong Indrajit (And Indrajit) deals with the monotony, stagnation and futility of the contemporary existence. The cyclical nature of the play draws parallels with people who "go round and round." Ebong Indrajit hit Kolkata's stage circuit with devastating effect. He launched his theatre group, Satabdi, in 1967. Melting into a spate of intensely gripping plays through the French and Nigerian sojourns, Bernard Shaw, Moliere and Eugene O'Neill were now inseparable facets of Badal Sircar's creative being. In 1968, he was awarded the Sangeet Natak Academy Award, and was felicitated with the Padmasree Award the following year. He won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship Ratna Sadasya in 1997. All these plays were the products of his prolific and multi-talented pen leaning towards Marxist ideology.

His subsequent productions - Spartacus, Sara Raattir, Hattomalar Opaarey, Bhoma and Michhil, were performed in villages, towns and cities. The "flexible, portable, inexpensive" motto of Third Theatre brought it close to the common man. Michhil (Procession) probably remains his best-known work which has been performed to packed audiences on the stage as well as on open streets.

As each play unfolded, the audience would get sucked into the performance watching actors turning into props and Nature, dressed simply in kurta-pyjamas, turning into a flowing river just now, changing into tube-well the next minute, whispering to the audience sitting on the floor, till the audience began to identify with the happenings even if the subject was distanced from its immediate experience.

He wrote, directed and staged a few conventionally staged proscenium plays too when he was testing the waters of his "Third Theatre." Among these are Jodi Aar Ek Baar, Pagla Ghoda and Ebong Indrajit. As playwright and director, Badal Sircar evolved and defined his individual content, form, aesthetics and philosophy he called 'Third Theatre', which, in course of time, became synonymous with his name.

Third Theatre is that kind of performance that recognizes, establishes and continuously reinforces maximum intimacy between actor and spectators. His strategy and methodology appeared simple and uncomplicated. But peeping behind the apparent simplicity was a philosophy that made theatre a performance for the people, of the people and in a manner of speaking, even by the people. He began by performing in small halls and with benches and stools to create varied shades of relationship between actors and spectators. He moved on to the open streets, gardens, parks, everywhere, turning the whole world into a stage without any reference to Shakespeare. He drew theatre out from the confines of folk and urban styles and into the Third Theatre to expose us to an unconventional theatrical dimension of free theatre, courtyard productions and village theatre.

Foregrounding Third Theatre, Sircar noted that "first" theatre refers to popular folk art forms such as Yakshagana. Second theatre is "Victorian" and essentially Western. Third theatre blended some elements of the other two, besides cultivating its own feel and identity distanced from these two. Though it is sometimes referred to as 'street theatre', it reaches far beyond a mere theatrical performance on the street, away from the proscenium, so referring to it as 'street theatre' dilutes its significance."

The 1970s, that saw the birth of Third Theatre, marked a point of departure in Sircar's career as a playwright. Till then, it was confined within the rigid framework of conventional indoor stage props and architecture. Third Theatre or Free Theatre was intended for larger audiences who enjoyed watching theatre but could not afford the high gate money. Badal Sircar's plays could be watched either free, or with a sheet passed around or for very little gate money. Sometimes, Panchayat funding and commissioned performances took care of the gate money.

His plays, stridently anti-establishment, attracted huge audiences in Bengal where the Naxalite movement was storming the state. Sircar travelled across Bengal to explore issues specific to a given community or locality. He then scripted plays rooted in that location. He also cast non-actors who fit into the roles and the context of his plays. Nearly fifty original plays and adaptations have found expression in the country's major languages, in English and German.

On a Saturday afternoon in 1973 at Curzon Park, opposite the Governor's House in Kolkata, Badal Sircar and his group, Satabdi exposed Kolkatans to an unconventional theatrical dimension. "Free theatre. No tickets, no government grants, no industrial sponsors or wealthy patrons," he underscored. Around 1974-75, Sircar's Third Theatre, a book authored by him which disappears soon after a new edition is published, till today.
Curzon Park became a regular venue for his group. Accessibility and a strong political content drew large crowds. He recalled one night when they performed and it began to rain heavily, the 3000-strong audience refused to budge. The message was getting across. But Is Badal Sircar a forgotten entity today? If he is still remembered, then where are the inheritors of his unique legacy that took theatre away from the proscenium and placed it right within the centre of public space among the common masses?

(Dr. Shoma A. Chatterji is a freelance journalist, film scholar and author of 32 single-author books covering gender issues, Indian cinema, short fiction and the history of the city of Kolkata. She has won two National Awards for her writing on cinema.)