The Bard goes
Tantric
By:
Roshni Bajaj Sanghvi
April 2, 2006
 |
Like
father, like daughter: Raell and Alyque Padamsee team
up for Macbeth |
Raell Padamsee, producer
The search for a tantric advisor was very difficult — we couldn’t
find people who spoke in English. Then a friend Anushree Banerjee
introduced us to Subhojit. We were enthralled with the time he’d
spent researching the topic and applying it in the creative field
and I realised we all shared the same vision.
It’s tough to work with a parent. But there’s so much mutual respect
between us. As a director I know I want the sun, moon and stars and
I want it now. So when Dad says ‘I want this’, I say ‘Okay, I’ll try
and get it for you’. Touchwood, we have actually got the best team.
And I am confident that the language of Shakespeare will be loved
and understood in this production. If the language is not spoken to
be understood, what is the point of Shakespeare?
 |
|
Alyque directs
Carla Singh in his tantric interpretation of Macbeth |
Alyque Padamsee, director
Twenty years ago, I read a book called The Feminine Force by a Dutch
author. That’s when I drew the parallels between the story of
Macbeth and Tantra. For 20 years, I looked for the perfect Lady
Macbeth and I have found her in Lushin.
Our team is in essence a karmic constellation. I did not want to
produce such a mammoth play. But between Raell, Subhojit and Lushin
the stars were right and I decided to go direct it. When I told
Louis Banks I wanted tantric music he was excited and got cracking
with Subhojit. Raell got Tarun Tahiliani enthused and so he decided
to design the costumes.
The story of Macbeth is driven by Lady Macbeth and she is the
tantric shakti who drives Macbeth forward. I always knew that in
Tantra the female force is the driving one. Subhojit's ideas were very
useful which I modified to suit a theatrical presentation not a
literal one. Nothing that you see on stage is used in tantric form.
Subhojit Dasgupta
Subhojit Dasgupta is a 29-year-old Acharya of Tantra and
Vedic sciences as well as a telecommunications and electronics
engineer. He has interpreted Macbeth through the lens of tantric
rituals for Alyque and Raell. He last assisted on Subhash Ghai’s
Kisna.
Our
Macbeth has been inspired by the rituals of Tantra and not its
philosophy. At our first meeting, I explained the Shiva Shakti
principle to Alyque and Raell Padamsee.
It’s where the woman, who is the creating force, arouses the male,
who is the medium for creation. Drawing a parallel in the play, Lady
Macbeth and the three witches are shown as practising tantrics. They
practice what is known as left-handed Tantra, which has the rajasik
and tamasik tattvas and involves sex.
Through this, we answer a lot of unanswered questions in Macbeth.
For example, when Macbeth undergoes, let’s call it a bedroom ritual,
through Lady Macbeth, he has a dark tantric awakening.
With Lady Macbeth goading him on, through the natural flow of power,
Macbeth becomes a killing machine to justify the witches’
prophecies. At this point, Macbeth becomes dark and Lady Macbeth
simultaneously declines into a shell. We find that she sinks into an
internal melancholia.
With this tantric interpretation, the audience can expect to be
transported through the use of chakras, twirling dances and tantric
subtonic sounds.
The audience will feel the power but it is an illusion. Having said
that, the original Shakespearean language has not been modified at
all, so there is no change in the original script, save for some
editing, for length.
The combined effect of this mystifying sound, lighting, music,
costume and rituals will enhance the level of the show experience.
Lushin Dubey, actor playing Lady Macbeth
In the last four to five years I have been doing Shakespeare with a
difference. I played Desdemona in the Othello that won the Fringe
Award at Edinburgh. I am open to doing anything fresh.
Alyque’s interpretation and depiction of Lady Macbeth is a cocktail
in which there are many nuances. Essentially the tantricism is
decoded as a woman.
Lady Macbeth is seen as a woman who is strong and ambitious,
translated into a possession and nervous energy. It’s the nature of
a woman, who loves Macbeth and converts it into possessing what is
right for him and injecting him with it. The flipside is that
disintegrates, crumbles and destroys her in a very jagged way.
Tarun Tahiliani, designer
It was interesting to meet a tantric (Subhojit) in a blazer. I had
no idea what a tantric was and was fascinated by the idea. So it was
a confluence of ideas with the tantric and the director Alyque
Padamsee, who wanted to use tantric colours as the characters moved
into their demonic mode.
I adored the idea of Indian mysticism mixed up with Macbeth and the
layering of different cultures on the universal plot of ambition. I
did think that the costumes, therefore, could have had more of an
Indian reference but the director felt otherwise, using Tantra
symbolically for colour.
Louis Banks, composer
This experiment that we’re doing with sound is replete with dark
themes, witchcraft, very ominous and foreboding. After all, there
are so many murders in the play.
The music belongs to the lower frequencies and will be projected to
evoke vibrations in your body. I’ve used Raag Deepak, a rarely used
raag meant to invoke fire and layered that with tantric frequencies
that you can feel in your bones.
When I heard the music first, I felt a slight giddiness and a
tingling. But it’s not scary, just evocative!
Fali Unwalla, set designer
I did not want to use the exact symbols of Tantra. There were some
specific connotations which were highly sexual, one about power and
lust and some that were simple geometric within geometrics. I
modified these symbols to improve their decorative value and used
them on the floor, beds and details. I also introduced a snake and a
gargoyle in places because so much of it is about supernatural,
magic, good and evil.
Macbeth opens on April 15 at Sophia Bhabha Auditorium,
Mumbai |
|
|
