“There is no escaping from power
that it is always-already present constituting that very thing which one
attempts to counter it with.”
Michel Foucault: The History of
Sexuality, vol: 1
Though coming a lot late, actually the
immense popularity of the play had rendered it impossible to see it early on,
hence a review coming after its 38th performance on stage.
Shakespearean adaptations for the Bengali stage has had a long history,
starting with Girish Ghosh and his adaptation of Macbeth and followed by another one, called Hariraj which is a translated adaptation of Hamlet. Recently, the Kolkata stage has seen a spurt of
Shakespearean performances, and most of notably excellent quality from Suman
Mukhopadhyay’s adaptation of King Lear
which I believe would go down in the annals as one of the great Shakespearean
adaptations on the Kolkata stage to Bibhash Chakraborty’s Hamlet and now Kaushik Sen’s Macbeth.
Earlier, we had also seen Bratya Basu’s Hemlat:
Prince of Garanhata which too, is an adapted version of Hamlet. Now,
whereas Suman Mukhopadhyay, resorts to and keeps the traditional Shakespearean
theatrics alive in his adaptation, Kaushik Sen, attempts to contemporarize his.
His vision of Macbeth hence becomes a
study in power, a power which is ‘always-already’ present.
Now, it is pertinent for a sensitive
artist to contextualise any adaptation to suit his own frame of reference and
politics, and Kaushik Sen does that. In view of the present political situation
that encompasses the horizon of the state he inhabits, his adaptation is
perhaps an appeal to the times and tries through theatre to encompass that
political discourse and the power formations that have taken place. Power
relies for its manifestation on knowledge and information and it hence became
pertinent that there was present an absurd decor with ears on both wings. Macbeth
himself utters after being king, “Prottek
ghore amar guptochor ache”. Sen has played his cards, and played them quite
well; and his adaptation explores the intricacies of the process through which
power, and in this case political power is filtered down through information.
The state relies on information and espionage, and this very comment
intertextualises the despotic regimes from the Gestapo to the Stasi, most
notably depicted in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Oscar winning film, The Lives of Others(2006).
It is undeniable, that Shakespeare’s
Macbeth along with being his “most
profound and mature vision of evil”[1] is
also a study in power and its manifestations. Kaushik Sen’s adaptation,
unfortunately resorts to the manifestation and leaves the study, sketchily
drawn. The opening sequence with the witches is followed by the soldier’s
account of the battle, and the first instance of difference is noted here. The
use of army uniforms as costumes, suggests the presence of a military regime.
Shakespeare’s study in power of the regime was on quite simplistic terms,
primarily, the protagonist; a power hungry demagogue who is interspaced by two
benevolent rulers. His study of power was on a more psychological plane, and
sadly it is this part that Kaushik Sen’s adaptation largely ignores.
Swapnashandhani’s Macbeth gets
embroiled therefore in the quagmire of the limiting unidimensional political
discourse and in a way fails to rise to a multifaceted plane. Kaushik Sen, on
the other hand, encapsulates, a continuity of power of the state, and therefore
is essentially a nihilistic vision of the modern time; King Duncan, followed by
Macbeth and later Malcolm, all resort to military force to quell dissenting
voices. Hence Macduff’s eulogizing of the King, makes it a political rhetoric
for the face of the power.
Shakespeare, much like the Greek
predecessors in Sophocles, sought to depict the society in its characters.
Michel Foucault perhaps aptly comments,
'A society expresses itself
positively in the mental illness displayed by its members, whether it places them
at the centre of its religious life, as is often the case amongst the primitive
peoples, or whether it seeks to expatriate them by situating them outside
social life, as does our culture'.[2]
In case of Macbeth
it is through the madness of Lady Macbeth and the eponymous protagonist that
this expression of the society is upheld. The tragedy of Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth is eventually resided in their madness, their psychological trauma,
“I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.”[3]
and
their own distancing from the natural cosmos. They had sought to upset the
hierarchial world order, the crime was against the Godhead, but in the 20th
Century, pragmatist machine driven society, the order is not upset against God,
but against the State, a state maintained by its police, its military and its
hired murderers, who proclaim at the conclusion quite emphatically one of the
most simplistic yet truest assertions on the nature of power, that the face of
power changes, but only its perpetrators remain constant. The hired murderers inadvertently
gain more importance in the plot than in Shakespeare’s original but being
responsive to the time, which is perhaps apt.
When
power becomes all pervasive, existence becomes absurd, and Sen’s adaptation
ends with the repetitive note of the absurd. Power induces fear and the fear of
Macbeth for Banquo is repeated in the fear of Malcolm for Macduff. “It will have blood”, the throne will
have blood, and that is the inevitability of it. Swapnasandhani’s adaptation of
Macbeth is a study in power and its
manifestations and done astutely on that front. However, the primary appeal of
Shakespeare’s tragedy would remain its psychoanalytic approach towards an
analysis of the protagonist’s mind, the objective-correlatives, the immensely
visual narration, and last but not the least, the poetry of Macbeth. It is
natural that translation would always leave a slippage a part lost, and
unfortunately it is extremely difficult for the heightened speeches of Macbeth
to find a close translation, which limits the appeal of this adaptation.
Kaushik Sen, is as usual of brilliant quality as Macbeth, as is Reshmi Sen as
Lady Macbeth. Kanchan Mallick as Macduff, despite laudable efforts, lacks that
visual presence of the character.
[2] Michel
Foucault. (1966). Maladie Mentale et psychologie. 3rd ed.
Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, p. 75. (1st edition 1954. This passage
translated by Clare O'Farrell).
