One night at the tiatr Saturday, Aug 3, 2013, 23:03 IST | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA Joanna Lobo
This Konkani art form was born in Mumbai and 121 years later still finds enthusiasts willing to create space for it in their lives, finds Joanna Lobo A tiatr performance - DNA Scene 1: Curtains go up. Enter stage left. A young man in a black suit is testing the mic. The audience, that has braved non-stop rain, flooded roads and frustrating traffic for this show, egg him on. In a few minutes the problem is sorted and the performer breaks into song. He finishes, the curtains rise and there’s a family on stage in the middle of a dispute. There's a hush now. The uncomfortable seats of Parel’s Damodar Hall start creaking as people settle in for the three-hour long tiatr — Prince Jacob Productions’ Pap Tujem Prachit Mhojem (Your sin, my repentance). The tiatr (a stage drama/musical in Konkani), completes 121 years this year. Tiatrs are doing good business in Goa, where they are staged throughout the year. In Mumbai, the birthplace of this theatre form, it’s a different story. Only a handful of tiatrs are staged now, most of which come from Goa. Among these few, productions by Prince Jacob are the most looked forward to. Scene 2: Two brothers dressed in tailcoats and fake, twirly moustaches saunter on stage and start singing. Prince Jacob, born Miguel Jacob Carmo Luis Fernandes, is best known for his humour, his ability to portray different (sometimes, female) characters and his singing. He and his brother Humbert Fernandes have been working together for 29 years and are a well-known comedy act; their performances always end with calls for encores. Backstage at the Prince Jacob show, the man in question is a complete change from his on stage persona, all calm and collected. “I plan all my tiatrs a year in advance so that people know what to expect. I am honoured that whenever I perform here, I still get a good response,” he says. “People will flock to a Prince Jacob production without any questions. If it's an unknown director, there will be hundreds of doubts — where has he performed before, what is the story about, who is singing?,” says Kenneth (Kenny) Zuzarte, a singer who is best known for his female portrayal of roles. One of the reasons behind Prince Jacob’s popularity is the fact that the troupe can be found in Mumbai twice a year — in January and in July. It’s a similar story with Roseferns (Antonio Rosario Fernandes). In June, the tiatrist recently staged seven shows of Waiter , his 75th production, in Mumbai and Pune. “There are people watching tiatrs and youngsters are keen on joining it. Tiatr is not dying anytime soon,” he says. Scene 3: A side act references Mumbai, making fun of the Bombay-accented Konkani spoken here and the way girls in Parel walk. Tiatr has a long and illustrious history in Mumbai, the city of its birth. The first tiatr Italian Bhurgo was staged on Easter Sunday, April 17, 1892, at the New Alfred Theatre. Tiatrs were staged at Princess Theatre, Bhangwadi (now shut), Mazgaon, St Mary’s Church, Byculla, Rang Bhavan and the Birla Theatre opposite Bombay Hospital. They were frequented by people who lived in the numerous kudds or clubs spread mostly across south Bombay. A few actors were brought from Goa but the tiatrs were produced by Goans working in Mumbai. Eugene Correia has attended around 70-100 tiatrs in the 70s — he would review them for the Free press Journal bulletin. “I would watch one every week. My reviews were quite critical and didn’t go down well with everyone,” he says. Correia could usually be found at Kayani’s at Kalbadevi which was a popular haunt for tiatrists. Today, the base has shifted to Goa, and getting a tiatr in Mumbai is an expensive proposition. The publicity is usually word of mouth, sometimes an announcement is made in advance at churches and flyers are handed out at certain clubs and church events. The Goan Tiatr Academy gives financial aid of Rs 30,000 to every tiatr that has a minimum five shows. The productions from Goa have to figure out their own food and lodging and travel. There are a few halls in Bandra, Matunga, Parel and Borivli that open their doors to tiatrists, but first preference is given to local talent. “It’s very expensive,” admits Roseferns. “We have to organise our own shows, provide lodging, food and transport. If we get a good crowd then it’s ok, else it is risky.” In suburban areas of Bombay, Goan tiatrists and others organise a few shows. When Kenny isn’t part of the audience, he works with the Maharashtra Konkani Kala Sanstha (MKKS) to promote the Konkani language and culture. The MKKS are currently practising for a show that will be staged on August 4. Titled Konnem Lailo Uzo (Who lit the fire), the production is a tribute to the late director and one of the biggest names in tiatr, C Alvares. Scene 4: The two brothers produce a side show about marriage and cars and has the audience in splits Comedy has always played a big role in tiatrs, but it was usually limited to the songs and acts between the breaks in the main story. Comedy was meant for relief, and usually had slight or no connection to the main story. “Now people are fed up with social issues. They prefer comedy. Whatever message we have to send across has to include comedy,” says Roseferns who admits to sometimes changing songs in the tiatrs when he performs in Mumbai. “The sideshows that lightly touch upon the main plot are becoming more dominant,” complains Correia. “The audience has remained the same but the standard is not as great as before. They’re producing them like a mass factory now. There is more comedy.” Sushila Pereira, a mother of two from Mazgaon, remembers attending tiatrs practically every Sunday with her family. Today she learns about upcoming shows at church, from the magazine Examiner and through family. “You cannot compare tiatrs of the olden days to the ones now. The oldies had that intense love for it, there was more life in the stories,” she says bemoaning the fact that youngsters shying away from Konkani has resulted in lack of interest in the theatre form. “When we were young, those tiatrs were our window to the world,” she says. It’s heartening, however, to note that tiatrs in Mumbai still get a sizeable crowd. People come with their families, braving bad weather, armed with tiffins of food and bottles of water and applaud and laugh at appropriate moments. There is no hooting, no catcalls, no loud conversations on mobile phones and no one entering late or walking out in between. Once the lights go out, the tiatr is all that matters. ALL ABOUT THE TIATR Italian Bhurgo (The Italian Boy), the first teatro, as it was then called, was composed by Goan Lucasinho Ribeiro on the basis of the Italian operetta. It was first performed by a troupe called Goa Portuguese Dramatic Company. When the first Goan migrants settled in Bombay in the early 19th century, they also performed zagors whose content included gossip, illicit affairs of neighbours, rumours, and washing dirty linen in public. The general impression was that it was an unrefined form of entertainment. The Goan dramatists who began writing plays in Bombay initially called them operas. In Bombay, the opening songs were compulsorily in Konkani as well as English. According to British regulations, the script had to be submitted to the censor for approval. Mrs Regina Fernandes became the first actress on the Konkani stage when she performed in Batcara (Part I) on Tuesday, November 22, 1904, at the Gaiety Theatre in Bombay. Karachiwalla translated Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, As You Like It,Winter's Tale and Hamlet into Konkani and presented them in Bombay. Apart from visiting Mumbai, tiatrs are in demand in Indian cities that have Konkani speakers like Mangalore, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad, Nagpur and Delhi. There is also an increasing demand for tiatrs in Kuwait and Dubai. Source: When the curtains rise... Understanding Goa’s vibrant Konkani theatre by Dr André Rafael Fernandes. http://www.tiatracademygoa.com/rafael-final-apr3-noon.pdf