August 1989
Inside the MahabharataBehind-the-Scenes Comments From The Director and Playwright
Mathur, Rakesh
The Mahabharata is one of the
great literary masterpieces of all time. It dates back to the 2nd and 3rd
century BCE and consists of 100,000 stanzas, which makes it the world's
longest poem. Recently, playwright Jean Claude Carriere and Russian-born
producer/director Peter Brook, who directed "Lord of the Flies" and "King
Lear," joined forces to produce a stunning stage version of this
gargantuan parable that last year took the world of theater by storm.
Carriere's French script of the Mahabharata has now been translated into
English and will soon to be rendered in Hindi. The English edition opened
in Zurich in August, 1987, and completed a successful, worldwide tour to
Los Angeles, New York, Adelaide, Perth, Copenhagen and Tokyo. Jean Claude
Carriere and Peter Brook share some insights about their production of
this timeless epic.
Jean Claude Carriere: "In order to adapt the
Mahabharata, to transform an immense epic poem into a play, we had to draw
new scenes from our imaginations, bring together characters who never meet
in the poem itself-all this within the context of deep respect for the
shape and sense of the story. Each of these characters has a total
commitment, each probes in depth the nature of his actions, each considers
his dharma and each confronts his idea of fate.
"In the second play
[It is three plays in one: "The Game of Dice," "Exile in the Forest" and
"The War"], which involves long years of exile, we had to find some way of
concentrating fast and fluid action in space and time without destroying
its energy or its mystery.
"The careful choice of language led us
to a problem which would be repeated in the stage decor, the music, the
costumes, the colors and the props: one might call it 'the Indianness.' I
had to write in French without writing a French play. I had to open my
language to rhythms and images of the East."
Peter Brook: "The
Mahabharata is the closest mythological reflection of our own times. It
explores the roots of warfare with the same concrete reality as
Shakespeare's characters. The Mahabharata shows the conflict of people
trying to live together. It is for today. What we are trying to do is to
celebrate a work which only India could have created but which carries
echoes of all mankind.
"I think it has extraordinary relevance to
today's world, because today everyone is concerned with the question of
war and conflict, and no contemporary writer, no contemporary work, has
gone beyond the first level of horror. And the Mahabharata, while facing
very realistically the first level, the depth of, the extent of the horror
that there is in human violence, carries a scheme of understanding so rich
that it gives contemporary man a possibility of understanding.
"We
saw that for several thousand years India has lived in a climate of
constant creativity. Even if life flows with the majestic slowness of a
great river, at the same time, within the current, each atom has its own
dynamic energy. Whatever the aspect of human experience, the Indian had
indefatigably explored every possibility. We were touched by the love that
Indians bring to the Mahabharata and this filled us both with respect and
awe at the task we had assumed."
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