Mumbai is home to big and small plays and everything in between. Little works of theatre such as THE HUNGER ARTIST, directed by Gurleen Judge, may be lost sometimes. They must not be forgotten though. As aggrieved farmers gathered and rallied in Mumbai, Delhi, and elsewhere last year, with more protests mounting this year, this little important piece of theatre is reflective of the varying crises faced by our farming communities. While the piece in itself focuses on the miserable plight of the cotton farmers from the Vidarbha and the Marathwada regions in Maharashtra, the actual idea is to explore something more deep and insidious: Hunger.
Though inspired by Franz Kafka's short story A Hunger Artist (1922), the nuances and the connotations between the original and this adaptation (dramaturgy by Suhel Banerjee), are best appreciated in their own contexts. But there are common threads. These essentially speak of survival and objectification. The stakes could not be higher, whether the condition of hunger is self-imposed, or is an outcome of circumstances - most of which, either way, press upon the collective callousness of our society and its resultant apathy.
So we, the audience, who have come to watch this "hunger artist", are as much in focus as the actor playing the artist is. Mandar Gokhale and Vikrant Dhote share the double cast. The camera trains its unrelenting lens on us. We observe but are being observed too. As soon as we enter we are no longer onlookers to this "show" of hunger in which multiple narratives are weaved in.
The set-up is minimal with a mound of cotton resting in one corner of the stage design. It catches the eye as a steady and imposing visual metaphor - symbolic enough, yet not obtrusive or particularly underlined. The simple yet effective stage design frames the hunger artist as he moves from one episode to the other, returning to some of these in a loop-like manner. The episodes are tragic to say the least, and yet narrated as a matter-of-fact. The screen in the background offers a parallel narrative based on film footage and conversations had.
There is a discernible desire to experiment not only with Kafka's original story but also with the production's design in a minimalist amalgamation of narration, movement, sound, film, and puppetry. The choreography is by the Manipuri contemporary dancer Surjit Nongmeikapam and sound design is by Muktak Kanjilal. The puppet is designed by Kapil Dev. There is a workshop/in-process feel to the piece but it does not diminish the performance. More significantly it is telling of the team to venture into an explorative journey.
A greater part of our lives are defined by food. This production is defined by the lack of it, highlighting at once, the social, political, and philosophical dimensions of the subject, whose twain meets in a grim tragedy and grotesque irony.
*Deepa Punjani has been writing on theatre and performance for close to two decades. She represents the Indian National Section of Theatre Critics, which is part of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) that has over 50 participating countries.
