So Near, Yet So Far: Badal Sircar's Third Theatre by Manujendra Kundu (review)

Manujendra Kundu's So Near, Yet So Far: Badal Sircar's Third Theatre is the first extensive review of Badal Sircar's works, demonstrating assiduous research along with critical analysis. Adopting both a wide-lens perspective and a microscopic approach, Kundu weaves together a complex gamut of works through textual analyses, interviews with Badal Sircar himself and members of his group Satabdi, and meticulous archival work. Delineating gradual developments in Bengali theatre through the implementation of the Dramatic Performances Act (1876), the war era, and the reactionary formation of the Bengal unit of the IPTA in 1943 as "the cultural unit of the Communist Party of India (CPI), with a view to fight against fascism" (46), Kundu illustrates how the elite class's justification to "ensure the stability and permanence of a colonial culture" (29) led to the consequent disintegration of all indigenous forms (such as Jatra, Kabigan, Panchali, Tarja, and Half-Akhrai) against the backdrop of the emergence of English plays and urban, western-influenced proscenium theatre. Kundu's primary argument in his first chapter – that, "in most cases, the real have-nots had no role to play, except for becoming the subject of the educated urban intelligentsia" (46), in spite of the inclusive communist ideologies of the IPTA – sets the stage for his eventual discussion of Sircar's "Third Theatre." Sircar's Third Theatre was a new "theatre of synthesis" and "a portable, intimate, and money-less theatre" (5), which sought to bridge the gap between rural folk theatre and urban middle-class theatre. Kundu's critique throughout is that Sircar's ideological claims did not translate into his practice as a theatre worker and that his work remained entrenched in urban elitism.

In his second chapter, drawing from Sircar's four-volume autobiography, letters, and diaries, Kundu traces Sircar's youth and college days, his training in engineering, his deep involvement with the party politics of CPI, and his eventual disillusionment with those politics. Sircar's interest in theatre gradually develops into an obsession, resulting in his first few proscenium plays and the formation of his group, Satabdi, in 1967.

In chapter three, analysing plays written during the first phase of Sircar's theatrical career, Kundu concludes that "his problems remained tethered to the middle-class society" (115). Through detailed textual and historical analyses of the plays, Kundu notes that, despite major Indian political upheavals during the 1950s and 1960s, specifically in Bengal, Sircar focused on the individual middle-class family drama, therefore not engaging "politically." Even though Kundu deems these plays apolitical, the themes explored in them are in fact representations of complex sociopolitical issues. While Bara Pisima (1959) is an example of metatheatre dealing with the politics of female participation in theatre, Sanibar (1959) brings to the surface concerns about unemployment and its consequential ramifications, all of which are committed to real-life political issues. Ebong Indrajit (1963) deals with the "absurdist" nothingness portrayed by the common man, albeit an urban bourgeois man. Kundu writes in his introduction, "Oddly, there is little evidence of his political adherence in the plays written in the first phase of his career. Most of them are comedies" (4), and moreover they focus on "worldwide war atrocities, instead of the Indian situation" (5). The implication that political adherence precludes humour seems to me a limited view, as is Kundu's assertion that political commitment is demonstrated solely through a focus on domestic Indian concerns. In these sections of the book and elsewhere, Kundu's strength proves to be his weakness: his keen dissection and meticulous analyses sometimes turn into avoidable captious remarks.

Kundu, however, engages convincingly in a "process of disentanglement" (77) to reveal contradictions in Sircar's Third Theatre in subsequent chapters. Chapter four demonstrates Sircar's gradual move toward "a theatre of synthesis," an ideological endeavour to unite rural "folk" forms and urban performances. Even though spectators welcomed the new experience...