Memory, a Compelling Instrument in Plays — Nikita Nath

“The more a man can forget, the greater the number of metamorphoses which his life can undergo, the more he can remember the more divine his life becomes”, said a Danish Existentialist philosopher Soren Aabye Kierkegaard.

Can one really forget or it’s just a modest act? Is life truly divine when you can remember or it’s just a sugar-coated half-truth? I have found and lost answers to these questions time and again, therefore they are still a dilemma and I am still searching. However, there’s one thing I’m certain of and that is “Memory” is the most powerful aspect we are gifted with. Whether it’s a memory of a good old day or whether it’s the one that haunts us down in our deepest sleep. And I think a good number of the playwrights from different centuries would agree with me as they have unabashedly used memory as a mighty weapon in their plays to derive and portray with depth on stage emotions such as joy, remorse, rage, fear, guilt, desire, being most salient among others.

One can find myriad traces of memory as a zealous instrument going down the prolonged road of dramatic history. The plays written by William Shakespeare (1564–1616) are bursting with memories, whether it is Oberon’s memory of “where the bolt of Cupid fell”, indicating the specific spot where love in idleness grew in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Hamlet’s memory of his mother’s love for his father “Why she would hang on him”, or Horatio comparing old Hamlet with his ghost “I knew your father. These hands are not more like”, or Hamlet picking up the skull of Yorick and his childhood memories flood back, or Macbeth haunted by the ghosts of his blood-soaked past or Lady Macbeth’s bloody hands, a memory that refuses to wash off till her last breath. The list can go on and on. Another master of memory is Tennessee Williams (1911–1983). From declaring his play The Glass Menagerie straight out a “memory play”, thus coining the term to portraying Blanche’s trauma, guilt, hallucinations through memory in A Streetcar Named Desire. Arthur Miller (1915–2005) is another Modern age playwright who has candidly experimented with memories or more specifically with “the selective amnesia of the past” in his plays. Whether criticising the “American Dream” through Joe Keller’s heavy memories of his past crimes that ended the lives of 21 young pilots which he tries to hide so bad but ultimately fails or Kate Keller’s guilt of knowing her husband’s crimes weighing on her chest in All My Sons or the co-existence of the past and the present in

Willy’s mind in Death of a Salesman or as the title of the book shouts “Danger, memory!” in the two plays I Can’t Remember Anything and Clara. Harold Pinter (1930–2008) is another playwright whose plays have created a fearful world where homes are haunted with the memories of the wretched past and a sharp lingering smell of unknown and therefore, danger. Whether it’s Ruth in Homecoming or Rose in The Room or Kate and Deeley in Old Times, perceiving the past memories in the present time, leading to past experiences shaping the present situation, blurring the line between past and present and ultimately making them victims of memories.

Now, if one looks into the representation of memory as a driving force in these plays, it can be observed that it has appeared in different shapes and forms. In Shakespeare’s plays, memory has taken a deep dive into the land of the supernatural and has come out on stage as spirits, ghosts, or a hanging dagger. Tennessee William on the other hand has used his narrators to tell the story of the past. Whereas, Arthur Miller’s plays heavily depend on symbols represented through different objects placed on the stage to showcase memories of the old days. Pinter’s sheer brilliance of capturing memory on stage comes from the dialogues spoken by his characters and also from the sudden appearance of a third person in his plays. This goes to show how versatile the representation of memory on stage can be.

Now, entering into the territory of Bengali plays, the traces of memory as a dynamic element or a driving force is quite evident. Plays, written by Rabindranath Tagore, Ajitesh Bandopadhyay, Badal Sircar, among some significant others sublimely carry such traces. Whether it is Tagore’s Bisarjan, or Ajitesh Bandopadhyay’s Nana Ronger Din or Badal Sircar’s Tringsho Satabdi, different aspects of memory as a compelling instrument can be seen. Contemporary Bengali plays such as Taray Taray, adapted by Kaushik Sen from Srijato’s novel is a fine example of such plays where the two narratives of Writtick and Vincent van Gogh merge to create a world where the boundary between the present and the past blurs and eventually disappears leaving the audience in a state of awe. Another prominent example of such contemporary Bengali play is Awddyo Sesh Rajani, a play based on a novel written by Shyamal Gangopadhyay and directed by Bratya Basu where the main character Ashim often finds himself tangled in the memories of his past theatre days of glory and how his works were so much ahead of its time, leading to the feeling of remorse in the present time. Both the plays were prop-heavy and full to the brim with

mesmerising light and sound effects while representing emotions derived from memory on stage.

Looking back at my own journey of three years in the theatre, I can assure you that the presence of memory as a dominant instrument is quite evident. Actually, now that I think of it, I realise that most of Bimoorto’s original plays are extremely memory-driven and I have been an active participant, sometimes as a part of the scriptwriting group and sometimes as an actor. I remember, writing the fourth story of the play Chaar Chitrer Chorjapod with another member and my dearest friend Sanlap where we portrayed a playwright, once highly acclaimed but now drowning in despair as he struggles with his moral compass. Here, we used two contrasting consciences of the playwright to make him remember his golden days in theatre and how he lost it all, leading him to crumble eventually. Hence, using memory to bring out the feeling of failure, shame and remorse on stage. In Char Chitrer Chorjapod Porbo-2, I played the central character Shiuli in the third story. It was a story of a prostitute, remembering at first about her happy childhood with her elder brother and then suddenly about the trauma and fear when she got kidnapped from a village fair and was forced into prostitution, leading to a feeling of complete numbness on stage. We used the silhouette to capture these memories while I sat in the centre stage, gasping and telling in a shaky voice the story of my haunting past to the audience. Ironically it’s one of my proudest memories in theatre.

Thus, it is safe to say that memory, whether grim or cheerful, deep or pale, contained within or beyond one’s control is all-powerful and intriguing and the plays mentioned earlier bear the proof. And as a fellow theatre practitioner, I feel we can do so much more with this wonderful gift in this period of momentous happenings. Whether shedding light on the forbidden thoughts or tearing apart masks of goodwill or escaping from the tormenting present or simply speaking one’s truth, memory can be used as the perfect doorway. And lastly, I want to express that weaving a play with different colours of memory, using the self as its humble subject, disrupting the harmony of time and space, bringing tension and relief at the same time remains the ultimate dream.