The Taste of British South Asian Theatres: Aesthetics and Production

By Chandrika Patel

The Taste of British South Asian Theatres: Aesthetics and Production offers critical analysis of eight British Asian performances, using an east-west approach of references and theories, the latter including the Rasa theory of the Natyashastra, Brecht's Gestus and semiotics, making a striking contribution to the understanding of one of the most outstanding examples of diasporic artistic activity in recent history.

With illustrations, the productions discussed are The Marriage of Figaro (Tara Arts), Curry Tales (Rasa Productions), Mr Quiver:intimate (Rajni Shah), Rafta, Rafta…(National Theatre), Nowhere to Belong: Tales of an Extravagant Stranger (RSC/Tara Arts), A Fine Balance (Tamasha), Deadeye (Kali Theatre) and the Gujarati play Lottery Lottery (Shivam Theatre).

“In the search for new models of criticism, Patel’s study of eight performances has advanced a subtle recipe that provides a new resource for diaspora studies.”
—Graham Ley
Emeritus Professor of Drama & Theory, University of Exeter

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Sep 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483433417

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The Taste of

British South Asian Theatres

Aesthetics and Production

CHANDRIKA PATEL

Copyright © 2015 Chandrika Patel.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3340-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3341-7 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The right of Chandrika Patel to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Dina Mousawi as Rukhsana in Tara Arts’ The Marriage of Figaro photographed by Richard Worts, reproduced with kind permission of Tara Arts.

Cover design: Shirin Sriram

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 8/26/2015

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

1   Introduction

2   Chapter One

(Theories: Natyashastra, Gestus, Semiotics)

3   Chapter Two

(Rationale)

4   The Marriage of Figaro

(Tara Arts)

5   Curry Tales

(Rasa Productions)

6   Rafta, Rafta…

(National Theatre)

7   Mr Quiver:intimate

(Rajni Shah)

8   A Fine Balance

(Tamasha)

9   Nowhere to Belong – Tales of an Extravagant Stranger

(Royal Shakespeare Company/Tara Arts)

10   Lottery Lottery

(Shivam Theatre & Seefr Project)

11   Deadeye

(Kali & Birmingham Rep)

12   Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

List of Illustrations

The Marriage of Figaro

1   The Begum (Sharona Sassoon) with Bashir (Chand Martinez), the music teacher.

Photograph: Richard Worts

2   Nawab (Shammi Aulakh) in the courtesan scene.

Photograph: Richard Worts

Curry Tales

3   Rani Moorthy as Curry Goddess on the flier of Curry Tales

Image: Matt Squire

Rafta, Rafta…

4   Programme Cover

Photograph: Dinodia Library

Design: Michael Mayhew

Mr Quiver:intimate

5   Rajni Shah as an Indian bride

Photograph: Chiara Contrino

A Fine Balance

6   Shankar the Beggar (Divian Ladwa) in A Fine Balance

Photograph: Robert Day

7   Set design and photograph: Sue Mayes

Nowhere to Belong – Tales of an Extravagant Stranger

8   Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Photograph: Rashid Khan

Lottery Lottery

9   Atisukh (Kiran Purohit) with Prabhu (Dr.Dharmendra Vyas)

Photograph: Sharad Raval

Deadeye

10   Zainab (Sakuntala Ramanee) in Deadeye

Photograph: Robert Day

Foreword

Chandrika Patel’s The Taste of British South Asian Theatres: Aesthetics and Production forms a striking contribution to critical studies of British Asian theatre, notably of plays in production. She casts her net widely, taking in performances of very different kinds, ranging from relatively orthodox drama to cutting-edge live art, and so reflects the diversity and ambition of work on offer over the last twenty or more years. This in itself would make the book a fascinating read, but Dr Patel also applies a remarkable triad of frames of reference to the productions she discusses, and by implication to the whole of British Asian theatre. These frames are drawn from Brecht’s approach to the creation of theatrical meaning, from the twentieth-century resource of the study of sign-making, semiotics, and most strikingly from the aesthetic approach enshrined in the ancient Sanskrit treatise on theatre-making, the Natyashastra. The result is a complex and intriguing set of discussions that lead us into the productions from different standpoints, clarifying and suggesting significance and connections in a manner that builds our understanding. What the reader takes away from this book is a conviction that Patel has offered an approach that seems to fit itself to the material far more persuasively than standard forms of literary analysis. In the search for new models of criticism, Patel’s study of eight performances has advanced a subtle recipe that provides a new resource for diaspora studies.

Graham Ley

Emeritus Professor of Drama & Theory, University of Exeter

Director of the British Asian Theatre Research Project, Exeter, 2004-2009

Preface

In the arena of British theatre, the activities of Asian-led companies had not been documented and received critical attention in proportionate to their achievements. That was the underlying premise behind the ground-breaking Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded British Asian Theatre Project (2004-2009), initiated by the Department of Drama in the University of Exeter, with which my research is associated. Out of over sixty performances, I have chosen to analyse eight namely The Marriage of Figaro (Tara Arts), Curry Tales (Rasa Productions), Mr Quiver:intimate (Rajni Shah Theatre), Rafta, Rafta…(National Theatre), A Fine Balance (Tamasha), Nowhere To Belong: Tales of an Extravagant Stranger (RSC/ Tara Arts), Gujarati play Lottery Lottery (Shivam Theatre) and Deadeye (Kali Theatre), the material and non-material observations of which are interrogated in relation to the ‘eastern’ and ‘western’ sign-making theories of Rangacharya’s translation of the Natyashastra (1996), Brecht’s Gestus and semiotics, taking readers closer to the nature of British South Asian performance. In my reception-based analysis, whilst some comment on the identities of Asian-led companies/artistes is inevitable, that is not the focus of this book.

The book begins with an introduction about a general discussion related to the nature of ‘British Asian’ identity, expanding on the community-linked aspect of the identity in relation to the review of Naseem Khan’s ground-breaking The Arts Britain Ignores (1976) report, the AHRC Memory Project (2005) in Exeter and the community-linked activities of the South Asian language-based theatres. Khan’s seminal report in 1976 not only brought into wider notice the ‘ethnic’ artistic activities of the South Asian communities and other immigrant communities of Britain but also was instrumental in bringing about a change in the Arts Council’s funding policies. The anecdotal evidence gained from my participation¹ as an interviewer and as an observer in the AHRC Community Memory Project initiated by Exeter University, (which aimed to record pre-1975 activities in pre-dominant Asian areas such as Whitechapel, Southall and Bradford), follows the review of Khan’s report, adding another dimension in providing an invaluable insight into the nature of the South Asian artistes and circumstances and spaces in which their diverse artistic activities were created and sustained. The third dimension is concerned with understanding the framework and position of the diverse South Asian language-based theatres mentioned in Khan’s report, which were practising drama long before the first English-based professional ‘Asian’ theatre company came about in 1977. I have outlined some of the productions in Gujarati, Bengali, Urdu and Punjabi alongside my direct experiences of language-based theatres. At this juncture, I introduce my own experience of having participated in the various South Asian arts activities since the late 1970s, particularly the South Asian dance scene, before expanding on the seminal event in the founding of the first professional Asian theatre company Tara Arts, formed in 1977 in response to the racist murder of a young Sikh man. This beginning is evaluated in relation to the ‘community’ identity of ‘Asian’ theatres created by the three strands, leading to the chapter one about sign-making theories.

In chapter one, three sections, devoted to the sign-making theories of the Natyashastra, Brecht’s Gestus and semiotics, provide insights into ‘eastern’ and ‘western’ worldviews and establish a suitably broad theoretical basis for a complex analysis of the eight performances. Bearing in mind Tara Arts’ and Rasa Productions’ associations with the Indian treatise Natyashastra and ‘British Asian’ identity’s associations with the Indian sub-continent, the theory of Natyashastra was an obvious choice. As means of providing a context, the first section offers a review of the thirty six chapters of Rangacharya’s English translation of the treatise (1996), highlighting chapters concerning signs. This is followed by a detailed exploration of the Rasa theory, analysing the treatise’s concepts of rasas and bhavas where speculations about their meanings are explored in relation to other critical texts. The suggestions of Brechtian characteristics in the theatricality of the British South Asian performance invited exploration of the Gestus theory, the semiotic applications of which have been compared with conventions of the Natyashastra. In the second section, I have summarised Brecht’s theoretical concept of Gestus and the principles behind it in relation to Epic theatre along with implications of reading Gestus, considered in relation to Willett’s translation of Brecht on Theatre (1964) as the primary source along with other sources. The third choice of the semiotics theory was made with a view to exploring the materiality of the British South Asian performance, that, when combined with the other two theories, create a broad and complementary theoretical basis to explore the ways in which the British South Asian performances create meaning theatrically through signs in their mise-en-scéne. In the final section on semiotics, I have summarised theories of Saussure (1915), Peirce (1839-1914), Pavis (1982), Fischer-Lichte (1992) and Barthes (1972), ending with the key characteristics of the three theoretical systems.

Chapter two provides a rationale behind the focus of the book, concerned with demonstrating how British South Asian theatres create themselves on stage through the identification and interpretation of signs in their mise-en-scéne. This is followed by reception-based analysis of the eight performances in sections four to eleven, each of which begins with an image, synopsis and production details followed by observations (that may be read as a ‘record’ and interrogated on their own and in relation to the scripts) and analysis of the salient aspects of the observations, considered in relation to the terms used in the sign-making theories and in relation to other performances. The section four begins with the performance of Tara Arts’ The Marriage of Figaro, the material and non-material signs of which are explored in relation to theories of the Natyashastra, Brecht, Barthes and Peirce. This is followed by Rasa Productions’ Curry Tales, Moorthy’s one-woman show, in which the characterisation of Kali the beggar and the Hindu deity Annapurna are explored in relation to the theories of the Natyashatra, Brecht and Barthes. Shah’s four hour performance installation Mr Quiver: intimate by Rajni Shah provides another diverse example of South Asian performance, the materiality and the method of which are explored in relation to Brecht, Peirce, Barthes and Gennep’s theories. The analysis of Hytner’s first ‘Asian’ play Rafta, Rafta… at the National Theatre begins with an exploration of the Indian wedding photograph image on the programme cover/ marketing flier which is examined through Barthesian lens, along with an analysis of the Bollywood inspired theatricality suggested in the linguistic and musical characteristics of the play. This is followed by Tamasha’s adaptation of A Fine Balance based on Rohinton Mistry’s novel, which draws upon an interview with the designer, Sue Mayes, considering characteristics of the set in relation to the characterization, examined through Brecht and Peirce’s theories. An edited version of this analysis alongside Tara’s The Marriage of Figaro was published in the essay titled ‘Imagine, Indiaah…on the British Stage: Exploring Tara’s ‘Binglish and Tamasha’s Brechtian approaches’ in Critical Essays on British South Asian Theatre.² Performing in her position as the columnist of The Independent, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s one-woman show/play Nowhere to Belong: Tales of an Extravagant Stranger is the next analysis that contains observations of two different experiences of her semi-autobiographical performance seen in 2005 and 2007 in which Brechtian sensibilities are explored along with notions of performer as a sign. In the next analysis of Gujarati play Lottery Lottery staged at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, the focus is on the ‘Gujlish’ (Gujarati-English) dialogues, the linguistic signifiers of which are compared to the East African Gujarati-sensibility infused English dialogues of Tamasha’s Strictly Dandia (2004) and the ‘imported’ Gujarati of Desi Stage’s Paiso Maro Parmeswar (Money is My God) 2005, highlighting types of Gujarati presented on British stage in different contexts, catering to particular kinds of audiences. Aspects of this analysis were published in the chapter titled ‘British-Based South Asian Language Theatres’ in British South Asian Theatres: A Documented History.³ Kali Theatre’s Deadeye is the final analysis in which I draw attention to the relationship between musicality and text, exploring the Sufi qawwali form in relation to the ‘talking back’ nature of the play. This is followed by an extensive conclusion, which revisits concerns highlighted in the introduction in light of the detailed analysis of productions, reconsidering audiences and communication, modes of representation, and the nature of British South Asian theatres.

Acknowledgments

Firstly, I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for giving me the opportunity to study the previously unchartered territory of British Asian Theatres at the University of Exeter in 2004. My study began with a sudden death of my beloved mother and I would like to thank Graham Ley for his support and understanding and also for encouraging me to study the Natyashastra. My mentors Dee Heddon, Jane Milling and Philip Zarrilli were also inspiring influences. In relation to the research, I would like to convey special thanks to Naseem Khan, Rani Moorthy, Rajni Shah, Kiran Purohit, Amiya Bhattacharjee, Hardial Rai, Sue Mayes, Jatinder Verma and Rachna Jhadav and the community members of East London, Bradford and Southall (AHRC Memory Project 2005) for their generosity of spirit, support and time. In addition, my network of colleagues & friends— Joy, Ollie, William & Lucinda, Adeel, Laura, Carolina, Zena & Colin, Swapnaji and Shubha, Sri & Shirin, Thalbir, Melina, Reggi, Michael, Charmienne, Churchill, Woytek, Jirayudh, Ha, Hala, Judith, Helen & Pankaj, Gayatri, Nela, Joseph & Jeremy—who have all been there for me. My sisters’ Malti and Shobha have been a constant support and a sounding board of discussions about arts and life. Lastly but not the least, I would like to thank Mr. Shah for encouraging me to turn my thesis The Taste of British South Asian Performance into a book.

1

Introduction

For the first time, being black and Asian is a way of being British. It is also sexy, and cool. Young blacks and Asians have turned marginality into a creative life force.

Stuart Hall, British scholar and gentleman¹

Hall’s euphoric statement invites contemplation on the ‘cool’ nature of British Asian identity in Britain. The DJ/presenter Bobby Friction places the roots of the ‘Asian cool’ narrative in the Asian underground music scene of the late 1990s, when musicians such as Talvin Singh and Nitin Sawhney used to play in the Anokha nightclub in Huxton Square in London, mixing ‘Asian’ sounds and aesthetics with ‘western’ beats, attracting non-Asian audiences to the ‘Asian’ club scene.² For Sharma however, the term ‘Asian cool’ also bears other less positive associations in Britain such as the inassimilable ‘smelly Paki’ inviting hostile responses of repugnance rather than reverence.³ Sawhney, an accomplished composer/producer, born in the early 1960s UK, remembers being the only Indian boy in his school and was called a Paki on his first day.⁴ The writer Hanif Kureishi felt that the word ‘Pakistani’ had become an insult and he didn’t care to use it about myself.⁵ Not surprisingly, the Anglo-Asian writer sees himself as an ‘English writer’, attributing his creativity to English Literature and British sitcoms and instead of cultural associations of festivals and food.⁶ In The Great British Asian Invasion ⁷ TV programme, the British Asian writer/actor Meera Syal recalls her school days, where the other children were astonished to see red blood dripping from her cut finger. Such ‘uncool’ experiences of hostile reception endured by the now established British Asian artistes are reflected in the term disruptive space, suggested by Nasta, who attributes their creativity to it.⁸

In UK, the term ‘Asian’ is more commonly used in reference to individuals of South Asian heritage originating from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Maldives. It excludes individuals of East Asian origin such as Korea and Japan. According to Khilnani, the idea of ‘South Asia’ is based on the USA’s interpretation of the world map, associated with the post-partition India, with notions of indeterminacy associated with its geographical elaboration.⁹ For Robert Young, being Asian is about being British Asian, a cultural hybridity consisting of bilingualism and polylingualism.¹⁰ The term ‘British Asian’ is just one of many labels used in reference to the identification of minorities of South Asian heritage, along with ‘immigrant’, ‘Black Minority Asian’, ‘Asian’, ‘ South Asian’ and ‘ethnic minorities’, often dependent on the context and its semiotic function within a particular discourse. For example the Olympic boxing champion, Amir Khan, is more likely to be addressed as ‘British Asian’ or ‘British Muslim’ than the protesting ‘Asian’ women dressed in Salwaar Kameez, sacked by their American employer Gate Gourmet in 2005.¹¹ These identification markers are all interchangeable dependent upon where one hears the term, who is saying it, where it is written and who is being addressed.

The second dimension associated with the term ‘Asian’ is its alignment with the ‘Black’ identity, reflected in Hall’s statement of being Black and Asian, indicating solidarity in terms of the common sharing of experiences of marginalisation and racism in post-war Britain.¹² In the past, the Black Theatre Forum (1985-1990) was considered to be a significant initiative, established to encourage a development of the ‘Black [and Asian] Theatre’ in Britain. In 1988, the classification of ‘Black’ was replaced with ‘British Asian’, based on the recommendation of the Commission for Racial Equality, replacing the ‘counter politics of racial solidarity’ of the 1970s with ‘ethnic pluralism’.¹³ The influence of ‘Black’ culture on a second/third generation British Asian youth brought up on Asian music cannot be disregarded, amplified in Ali G’s ‘Black’ character (Catchphrase: ‘Is it cos I is Black’), performed in a ‘white’ body with a Jamaican accent, gestures and clothing. In the Britain’s Got Bhangra musical (2010-2011) the writers Kumar and Virdi of Rifco Arts had included a sixteen-year-old Tina in the cast, a Punjabi character who saw herself as Black and cool.¹⁴ Griffin, however, has asserted that the term ‘Black’ was no longer suitable in relation to the diverse South Asian communities and their cultural identities that are different from and distinct from Black British cultural identities.¹⁵ But she contradicts her own contention by placing the two distinct groups of ‘Black’ and ‘Asian’ writers under the same cover in her book Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights. During the public consultation meetings organised by the Arts Council in 2005, the term, ‘Black Theatre’ was contested by some Asian practitioners as they felt a sense of detachment with the idea of ‘Black’ associated with their work.¹⁶ The report used the term ‘the sector’ as a symbolic recognition of this lack of consensus.¹⁷

Richard Turner (Editor of the Veena Magazine, concerned with reporting and reviewing of South Asian arts activities in Britain) strongly objects to the term ‘British Asian’, preferring to use heritage/regional identity referents such as Guajarati or Indian, that identifies a particular cultural background without necessarily implying issues of immigration status or divided loyalty.¹⁸ Indeed the singular, ‘community’ identity associated with the term ‘British Asian’ contradicts its plurality, in the divisions and diversity of the South Asian communities through regional/caste/faith-based identities. In conversations between South Asian communities’ members, it is not uncommon to hear regional/caste/religion suggesting terms of endearment such as ‘Gujju’ (Gujarati) and ‘Southey’ (South Indian) and others as means of identification, a practice not uncommon in the Indian sub-continent.

Sayyid’s BrAsiansign, contextualised in the postcolonial immigrant imagery, signifies those settled members of Asian communities who choose to identify their identity in terms of their south Asian heritage. The sentiments behind Nasta’s term disruptive space appear to be implicit in the nature of the sign with associations of segregation, erasure and confusion.¹⁹ Indeed the socio-cultural assimilation of ‘British’, ‘Asian’ and ‘Black’ identities has created other avatars such as a ‘coconut’ identity, where a racial body inhabits an outer ‘English’ mask, signified by a certain type of spoken-English and mannerism.

Diaspora

Avtar Brah does not see the notions of British-Asian-ness or Black British-ness as mutually exclusive terms but cross-cutting with other British identities, thus decentring notions of Englishness, British-ness or Indian-ness.²⁰ Does Brah’s concept of diaspora imagined via a confluence of narratives as it is lived and re-lived, produced, reproduced and transformed through individual as well as collective memory as well as re-memory provide a better location of a ‘British-Asian’ subject?²¹ Brah uses the concept as an interpretative frame to analyse economic, political and cultural modalities of historically specific forms of migrancy and the relationality of these migrancies across fields of social relations, subjectivity and identity.²² However, according to Ahmed, terms such as ‘diaspora’ have notions of centuries of pain and dispossession inscribed in them that cannot be necessarily associated with South Asian immigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who had migrated to the UK during