At
times, the liberty of the arts can take
an ugly turn, if not used with prudence. The evening of Saturday,
July 23, 2016 saw Jennifer, the wife of tiatrist Francis de Tuem, and
a group of people take to the stage at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao,
wherein they proceeded to assault another tiatrist, Conception de
Tuem, during the staging of the tiatr ‘Answer’.
For
years, tiatr has been the medium for many a lay person to address or
voice certain concerns and discontent. However, there is every chance
that this freedom of expression, when not sensitised, could have
adverse effects.
Tiatr
critic and author Daniel De Souza has a take on the matter that is
his very own. “I feel that there should be a certain level of
awareness and self-censorship from the tiatr community. This should
start at the director’s level and trickle downward from there.
There is still time to put the house in order, because that in turn
will facilitate the betterment of the current scenario. This should
be done at the earliest, or there are odds that even the government
may intervene to impose censorship, and that wouldn’t be a good
thing,” he says.
With
regard to the incident on the weekend, senior tiatrist Connie M says
that it was hurtful to know of such an incident having occurred. “The
reason why I stepped down from the Konkani stage was precisely
because there is no unity among our tiatrists today, and most of the
modern tiatrists are involved in only slashing each other. The
involvement of tiatrists on the Konkani stage today is purely on
commercial grounds and not for the love and art of tiatr, the manner
in which our older stalwarts sacrificed their lives for the progress
and growth of pure entertainment. If the new directors are only for
commercial benefit, then they should pack their bags and go home. For
promotion of vulgarity on stage, our audience is also to be blamed.
Had strong opposition followed from the audience, then we would have
had decent tiatrs to witness today,” he added.
Another
senior tiatr buff, who spoke on the basis of anonymity, said that
there is an urgent need to draw a line somewhere. Washing dirty
linen, that too of their own brethren, is unethical of some of the
noted tiatrists. “As Tiatr Academy Goa is the governing body, it
should intervene and suspend tiatrists who fail to maintain decorum
on-stage. Tiatr should not serve as a platform to highlight the
personal lives of the tiatrists through acts and songs. It should
continue to provide only pure and clean entertainment. If the present
filthy trend continues, then we may have to see the demise of tiatr
very soon,” he concluded.
This
is not to say that grievances with tiatr should not be addressed. It
merely suggests that things could be handled differently from the
drawing board stage itself; and if that fails, then there could be
alternative methods, by which people could take them up with the
concerned tiatrist. However, an attack on the stage is an attack on
the art form that is tiatr itself, which would mar its legendary
status.
