INTERVIEW OF MR. MANJUL BY ROBERTO MAZZINI OSNABRUCH 5-3-2001 BACK
1) Do you think theatre is useful in order to prevent violence in the society?
Manjul: yes. Why violence occurs? When an individual is not allowed to express him/ herself that creates an inner block. Then this block becomes worse, more and more and the person reacts in a destructive way against the social system. That’s violence for me.
2) What do you mean with “expression”? A catharsis, creativity or else?
Manjul: it’s to present him/ herself in front of an audience. For the audience that person is a character but for the person it’s a self-expression/ projection.
First step is to express the self, as it is.
Second step: when the person is accepted and turns towards a positive line, feels to be a member of society, he/ she can became a character, and bring other people to the same way. It’s a chain reaction.
For Instance, there’s a performance we did call Mera Bachpan (my childhood), performed more them 10,000 times in India; actors are child labourers. I wrote the plot and when they performed first time, they were actually expressing themselves, their own life, as person.
Afterwards many of them choose to leave their labour and started to attend school and we wrote another play called B7 (as a metaphor of G8 meetings). It’s matter of a meeting among birds discussing world conditions and how to improve the situation. They are in the second phase because now they are the ambassadors for non-violence and performance of theatre for the society.
My view is to see the world from a collective point of view, not an individual one. The beauty of theatre is the collective work in theatre; each person is involved, actors, directors, technicians, all people are important.
This collectivity is theatre, it’s first main element.
Second element is communication,
third conviction and clarity.
This brings a positive change and development into society.
3) Is conflict crucial point for your work? As other theatre pedagogues say?
Manjul: yes, because I want children / youth/ Adult to bring this happiness into their lives it’s necessary to face the conflict. It’s not useful to be happy in theatre and then coming back to reality without changing it.
But I do not propagate/ influence the solution. I only act as a member of group, helping it with my theatrical experience to find solutions collectively. I contribute I do not solve.
4) What are the main obstacles do you have found in your practice?
Manjul: first the theatre pedagogues attitude, because they don’t want to come out of their conflicts and blocks; many of them act only for themselves, just are for art sake.
That brings them to think that theatre cannot make revolution. Because ,they’re not in touch with real life.
But when they play they enter a process that brings a change in them and they deny it. They are afraid to share the power.
That brings to second point:
Normal people follow the celebrity, popularity and this fact puts them in a passive situation. It takes time and energy convincing / making them understand that they also have resources, not only the famous actors.
There is a conflict between people and actors and I like that. Conflict is drama.
Third: the political system itself is an obstacle to this collective decision making strength of theatre. So we try to make a circle; we start from the individual sufferance and conflicts; we move to group conflicts; then to community level; furthermore to a national and then worldwide level. And finally, we return to the individual.
If you cannot complete the circle it doesn’t work: violence arises. The weakest point is now the passage from group level to community level.
5) What about your dream for “Theatre of Relevance”?
Manjul:I dream Theatre of Relevance practiced and propagated all over in the world. I would like that each person could be involved in theatre, community theatre could growth and people went through theatre; some of them will choose to do theatre but others would become sensitive to theatre, because theatre is life.
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