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'TIATR' A Unique form of Goan Dramatic Art
- Tomazinho Cardozo
Tiatr is a unique form of dramatic art of Goa, different from various other
forms of drama that exist in Goa. It cannot be compared to a prose
drama as tiatr has lot of music in it. Again it is not a musical drama
either. Hence it's uniqueness.
Tiatr consits of 5, 6 or 7 parts, each part is called a "podd'ddo'.
Thus a tiatr may have 5, 6 or 7 'podd'ddes'. These 'podd'des'
consist of the main story of the plot and it can have songs called 'cant'
for each podd'ddo. It is not necessary that each podd'ddo has a 'cant'
for each podd'ddo. It is not necessary that each podd'ddo has a
'cant'. These 'cants' are related to the theme of the tiatr and are
sung by the characters in the tiatr itself. This can be called one
section of the tiatr.
The other section consists of songs or 'kantaram'. In between the 'podd'ddes'
two or three 'kantaram' are sung. These 'kantaram' are based on
various topics and have no link to the story of the tiatr. These 'kantaram'
are sung by any artistes, not necessarily by the characters in the play.
Thus a tiatr will deal with one subject while 12 to 14 'kantaram' will deal
with 12 to 14 other subjects. It is for this reason that tiatr is a
unique form of Goan dramatic art.
It is exactly a hundred and two years ago on April 17, 1892 that the birth
of tiatr took place. It was an Easter Sunday and a Goan youth,
Lucasinho Ribeiro, from Sokol Vaddo, Assagao, Bardez, staged the first tiatr
'Italian Bhurgo' at New Alfred Theatre, Bombay. (New Alfred Theatre is not
in existence today). Thus, Goan tiatr was born in Bombay.
Tiatr cam into existence with the direct influence of Western dramas.
In the 10th century, operas from Italy used to be brought and staged
in Bombay, Poona, Madras, Bengal, Delhi and other cities of India. Italian
operas were very popular in those days and attracted youth knowing English
to work in those companies of troupes as back stage artistes. Lucasinho
Ribeiro was one of the few persons at that time who had passed the
matric examination and was the only one in Assagao, who was giving tution in
English. Lucasinho Ribeiro had come to Bombay in search of a job.
He joined one of the Italian troupes as a back stage artiste.
It is here that Lucasinho Ribeiro learnt various aspects of the dramatic
art. He translated one of the Italian operas into Konkani and entitled
it "Italian Bhurgo". As the original Italian operas had many
scenes, so too did Lucasinho's "Italian Bhurgo". Because a lot of
time would be required to change the sets due to which the audience would be
bored, he found a solution to fill the time gap during the changing of the
sets. He included dances, and songs in the front part of the stage
while the sets were being arranged behind the curtain. Naturally these
dances/songs had no relation to the story of the tiatr. They were
included purely to provide entertainment to the audience in the time
interval during stage setting.
In this innovation, Lucasinho Ribeiro was helped by another stalwart of the
tiatr stage, Joao Agostinho Fernandes.
The word 'tiatr' was spelt as 'teatro'. It is a Portuguese word
meaning 'theatre' in English. With the Portuguese rule and Portuguese
language in Goa, the word 'teatro' was common in Goa too. Lucasinho
Ribeiro used the same word 'teatro' while staging the first tiatr.
Even today, senior tiatr artistes, having their education through Portuguese
use the word teatro. Those artistes who were brouoght up with an English
education write it as 'theatr'. It is only after the liberation of Goa
that amateur artistes, who were all out to develop the tiatr stage,
started writing the word as 'tiatr' as per the pronunciation of the word 'teatro'.
Thus 'teatro' or 'tiatr' came into existence, and till today, it
continues to provide entertainment to the people.
Forms of entertainment before tiatr:
Zagor and Khell were the two crude dramatic forms which entertained people,
bfore the birth of the tiatr. Zagor was popular in the north of Goa
while Khell was famous in the south of Goa.
'Zagor' was organised mostly on village feast days. People used to gather at
one open place. A fire was made at the centre. People used to
sit around it keeping the required space for acting, gumots were the only
instruments used.
Acting in Zagor was mostly extempore. The
actors used to do anything and everything includ- ing criticism of others.
The criticised person could also act and give a befitting reply through his
acting. Vulgarity used to play an important role in the Zagor. There were no
rehearsals, no script, no direction, but Zagor did entertain the people that
time. 'Khell' was organized in the south during religious feasts and during
car-nival and Easter in large number. 'Khell' was much more improved, more
systematic and more organized compared to Zagor. 'Khell'-was staged on the
ground itself. There was.no stage. It could be staged anywhere mostly in
front of the houses of the people. There was no setting and there were no
curtains. But .symbolism' and 'suggestive' setting was used to depict
different scenes and different circumstances. In my opinion the manner in
which a 'Khell' was staged during that time,, is nothing but the
'experimental theatre' of
modern times.
However, when tiatr came into existence, it
provided much more entertainment than the zagor and the khell. Besides the
main story of the tiatr, it mad
'e the audience happy with a number of songs . on varied topics,
which in fact won the hearts of the audience. Natural- ly, tiatr gained
increased popu- larity and finally became the only entertainment of the
people.
Lucasinho Ribeiro wrote and staged the first tiatr but he was not
called 'father of tiatr'. In absence of proper records, from the information
collected from seniorrnost tiatr artistes and from the articles published in
Konkani in 1942 on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee celebration of the
tiatr, nothing much is available about Lucasinho Ribeiro, even the sc ript
of 'Italian Bhurgo' is not traceable. However the wor of Joao Agostinho Fernandes, was
involved with Lucasinho Ribeiro to stage the first tiatr, is well recorded
and today it is preserved at Goa Konkani Acaderny.
Joao Agostinho
Fernandes from Margao who was working in Bombay continued the work in the
field of tiatr, started by Lucasinho Ribeiro, with more enthusiasm,
dedication and purpose. He worte many theatr and his manuscripts are well
preserved. He is the first tiatr .script writer, who published the tiatr in
book form, thus setting an example for others to publish their work in book
form for posterity.
He excelled as a
director too. He rehearsed his tiatr at least for 2 months. He believed in
perfection. He saw that proper attention was -given to direction, stage
movements, voice modulation, dialogue delivery, etc. In short, his
aim was only to stage something
of high standard. Tiatr goers appreciated his efforts and he was rightly
called the 'Father of tiatr' or 'Pai tiatrist'.
First
lady on tiatr stage : It
was not advisable for women to act on the tiatr stage. It would adversely
affect their future. This happened not only on the tiatr stage, but
practically on all stages, be it Marathi, Bengali, etc. Men had to act as
women.
However
it was in 1904, that a women stepped on, the tiatr stage. The lady who
created history was Regina, Fernandes, wife ofjoao Agostinho Fernandes. In
October 1904, she first acted in Joao
Agostino's
tiatr 'Bhattkara' thereby coming out bodly from the clutches of
tradition and setting an example to others to enrich the tiatr stage. Many
women followed her on the stage , but a time came when traditional pressure
once again prevented young girls from acting on the tiatr stage. Again men
had to do the role of women in order to
preserve the tiatr stage.
Today the tiatr stage
has numerous women doing their bit for its improvement.
Types
of Tiatrs
Tiatrs
can be classified into three categories,. namely, Social, Religious and Political.
Over
90 per cent of the tiatrs, written and performed in the last 100 years were
of a social nature. They mostly dealt with family problems and problems in
the society, such as the caste system,
dowry
system, superstitions,
etc. Joao
Agostinho Fernandes, Saib Rocha Aleixinho de Candolim, Minguet Rod, etc who
are no more living, had staged tiatrs on these sub- jects. Today artistes
like C. Alvares, M. Boyer, Remmie Colaco etc. have proved very effective in
writing social plots.
Very
few religious -tiatrs are staged. The credit of bringing religious tiatrs on
the stage goes to late Souzalin. He took the re- ligious tiatrs to every
part of Goa and won the hearts of the people. I He also saw that his tiatrs
were technically highly developed. He made
good use of light effects, stage setting and costumes to please the
audience. In fact people used to remark 'Souzalin's tiatr is just like a
film'.
Religious
tiatrs were based on the life of Jesus Christ or on the lives of some
saints. They mainly attracted a Catholic
audience.
In
recent times, Ligorio Fernandes, Fr. Planton Faria, etc. stage religious
plays, mostly in the Lenten season.
The
political tiatr came into existence very recently, ie. soon after the
liberation of Goa. The writer director who staged the first political tiatr
was the. late Mr Nelson Afonso. His tiatr 'Nationisalist' made a lasting
mark in the minds of the tiatr lovers.
In recent times, Mike Mehta,
Tomazinho Cardozo, etc. are continuing his work.
The political tiatrs have mostly dealt with the political situation in Goa.
These tiatrs expose the corruption, hypocrisy, double standards, etc.
of Goan politicians.
Ingredients of a Good Tiatr:
If one asks a regular tiatr goer to choose a good tiatr, he will name some
tiatr of his choice. If one further asks him why he had chose those
tiatrs as good tiatrs, then he will say that it had melo-drama: it had
enough comedy and that it had good entertaining songs. Thus melo-drama,
comedy and good songs become the ingredients of a popular tiatr.
I have heard people saying that particular tiatr had a good story, but no
comedy, or that it was good but the songs were so bad that it turned the
tiatr into a flop, and so on.
Thus if melo-drama, where there is sadness, and which ends in a climax, the
comedy which makes the audience laugh and laugh more, and songs with good
music are included in a tiatr, then the said tiatr will be considered as an
excellent one.
I have not seen any tiatr survive without comedy. In other words I
have not seen any serious tiatr appeal to the audience.
Records for Posterity:
In the last 100 years innumerable tiatrs must have been written and staged
but hardly any can be read or staged today. This is only because the
good example, set by Father of Tiatr, late Joao Agostinho Fernandes, of
publishing the scripts in book form wass not implemented by writers of tiatr
later. It is due to this reason that most of the tiatr literature was
destroyed with the dealh of the writer. In recent times, amateur tiatr
artistes like Tomzinho Cardozo, Cezar de Mello have published their tiatrs
in book form.
Songs or 'Kantaram', I would say, are being preserved for posterity. Form
the 1930's onwards we see that tiatr staged songs were released in form of
gramophone records which we still enjoy till today.
We also see that hundreds of audio cassettes or stage songs are released
every year. This is a good sing. Alfred Rose has to be given the
credit of producing the first audio cassette of songs.
Today video cassettes of songs as well as tiatr are found in the market.
The production of audio and video cassettes of songs and tiatrs have
increased and the only reason is that the production of audio and video
cassettes is financially profitable. On the other hand, no books are
published, as this exercise if not financially viable.
As for me, our tiatr artistes have taken steps where financial prospects are
protected. So publishing of tiatr books, which is the most important
activity in the dramatic field in any language is neglected.
Impact of Tiatr on Goan Society:
It is a reality that tiatr caters mainly to the Catholic community of Goa.
With few exceptions, tiatr artistes, as well as the tiatr audience, is
from the Catholic community. Artistes like Kamat de Assolna, a non-Catholi,
did play a good role in the development of tiatr in yesteryears. Presently
Premanand Sangoldkar, Shalini, Premanand Lotlikar, Ratnakar Govekar, etc.
entertain the tiatr audience.
Tiatr influences basically the Catholic community. As such the themes
of the play and the songs are based on the principles followed by the
Catholic community, be it social, political or religious.
However, some change have been seen since Kala Academy of Goa started Tiatr
Festivals way back in the 1974. In these Tiatr Festivals, in the spirit of
competition, many non-Catholic directors, actors, and artistes, experienced
in various aspects to theatre arts, participated in tiatrs. Naturally
their involvements added modern technical trends to the tiatr stage. Non-Catholic
audience also increased to some extent.
Tiatr has played an important role in achieving their aspiration of Goans.
Whenever Goa, Goans, their language and identity were at risk, tiatr
became the most important instrument to awaken the people of Goa. For
example during the time of the opinion poll, during the language agitation,
etc., tiatr was instrumental in inculcating in the audience, the seriousness
of the issue and encouraged the people through songs and play to fight for
their rights.
I feel it was only during these issues - like the merger of Goa or the
Konkani/Marathi tussle that the tiatr audience took the message from tiatrs
seriously and acted accordingly. Otherwise, the audience takes tiatrs
only as a means of entertainment.
Tiatr as a "Stage of Goa":
Tiatr cannot and should not remain limited to the Catholic community of Goa.
It should attract non-Catholic too, in order to be the stage form of
Goa. This has not happened for the last 100 years.
Perhaps because no one took serious steps in the direction. Today,
there are individuals and there are institutions who can work honestly in
that direction.
Kala Academy's Tiatr Festivals have given some encouragement in that
direction. If Kala Academy takes it as a project, I feel all Goans can
be attracted towards the tiatr.
Goa Konkani Academy is another institution who can also bridge the gap, with
a proper approach to the problem.
(Courtesy: Sunday Herald)
Questions or Comments? Please
write to us at: thegoanreview@goa-world.com
Special Thanks for
the arrangements: Gaspar Almeida
with Fausto V. Da Costa. {Amchea kerit dhinvas Gaspar
Almeida ani Fausto V. Da Costa-k) - Goa-World Team
(Kuwait).
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