Conception de Tuem was singing on the tiatr stage, when a woman walked up and allegedly assaulted him. Conception was taken to hospital, the woman, wife of tiartist Francis de Tuem, was arrested and later bailed out. This one incident has thrown the entire tiatr fraternity into a tizzy, as satire in tiatr has taken a very different and provocative form, almost hitting below the belt. Tiatrs and tiatrists have been known to taken on politicians in their songs, drawing the latter’s ire, but what provoked this incident was a tiatrist allegedly slandering another. While tiatr scripts today, especially the songs border on the bawdy, it wasn’t always so.
Way back in 1892 when Lucazinho Ribeiro presented ‘Italian Bhurgo’ on the Mumbai stage and thereafter Joao Agostinho Fernandes wrote and directed numerous tiatrs and gave a high standard of excellence to the Konkani stage, it was a long struggle for those stalwarts to bring this unique dramatic form into existence and help maintain its standard.
“Before tiatr was born, the entertainment to the Goan masses was provided by folk dramatic forms, namely ‘zagor’ and ‘khell’. ‘Zagor’ was popular in the north Goa whereas ‘khell’, which was also known as ‘fell’, was popular in south Goa,” informed Tomazinho Cardozo, the past president of Tiatr Academy Goa. “In fact, ‘zagor’ and ‘khell’ entertained the Goan masses for a long time. Whenever Goans migrated to other parts of the country for employment, they took with them these forms of entertainment,” he revealed, “however as time passed the standard of ‘zagor’ as well as ‘fell’ deteriorated due to introduction of elements of vulgarity to create fun and cheap entertainment for the audience. This decline of quality in staging ‘zagor’ and ‘khell’ prevented many people from witnessing these forms of entertainment. Educated people stopped patronizing the ‘zagor’ as well as the ‘khell’.”
Cardozo said that Goans were in need of good and qualitative entertainment and thus the tiatr was born. “Lucazinho Ribeiro was one of the few youths in Assagao who knew to read and write English. Being unemployed, he used to give tuitions to others in English. He was very much interested in cultural activities from his young age. He was a good singer too and enjoyed singing Konkani and English songs,” he mentioned.
Cardozo revealed that Joao Agostinho Fernandes was the first writer to write original scripts of tiatrs on themes highlighting injustices in the Goan society. “He was also a pioneer in composing lyrics and original music scores for songs. These songs can be heard even today on HMV discs,” he said, “If so where is the folk element in the tiatrs and songs presented by the pioneers of tiatr? In view of this it is clear that tiatr – its prose as well as its songs and music – has no relevance to folk theatre or folk songs or folk music. On the contrary, it had a tremendous influence of the contemporary European theatre and music of that time. Hence tiatr is a product of modern theatre – a fusion of modern prose and modern song and music of that time.”
But over a period of time when tiatr gradually turned to be more commercialised, with qualitative entertainment taking a back seat, the entire concept changed in the minds of writers, directors, singers and comedians. Each of them turned to be ego-centric, keeping the basic form of entertainment and interest of the audience at length.
John Claro, who has closely worked with some of the stalwarts of the Konkani stage, said that he is disgusted with the present happenings on the tiatr stage and feels ashamed to watch tiatrs where washing of dirty linen in public is the order of the day. “Criticisms can be tolerated, but direct mention of names on stage is below the belt,” he emphasised.
Claro concealed that he met Joao Agostinho through his friend Jack Fernandes in Mumbai. And during that encounter the ‘father of tiatrs’ rightly said to him: “Ami tiatr pavoilo khoim ani atam tiatr khoim pavla’. (We took tiatr to great heights and where is it today). That was the period when some tiatrists criticised each other personally on stage in the 50s,” he added.
Claro said that Souza Ferrao always wanted educated people to join the tiatr fraternity as it would help bring in decency and maintain the standard of tiatr. And a few like Anthony de Sa, Remmie Colaco, M Boyer, C Alvares joined thereafter, he revealed.
“Personal attacks and audience taking to stage when tiatr is in progress is not a healthy exercise. It is highly objectionable. Decorum has to be maintained and if the old trend of personal criticism continues, then people who love tiatr, will distance themselves from watching them,” opines Claro, “it is demoralisation of tiatr.” “Censorship of tiatr and tiatrists should not be there as it will only lead to curtailing the freedom of expression. But good directors can take the initiative and stop the rot prevailing on stage.”
“Some 80 years back, tiatrists used to criticise each other and the audience refused to come to watch tiatrs,” confessed Wilson Mazarello, a senior tiatrist and critic. “Pai tiatrist felt pained when the environment was unhealthy among the tiatrists. And during that period, the stalwarts of the Konkani stage had to work hard to get back the audience to watch tiatr,” he mentioned.
“Despite the lessons of the past,” says Mazarello, “it appears that instead of progressing with the local art form, we are returning to the past and that should not happen.”
“If tiatr has to survive for the future generations,” he opines that self censorship is a must among all the tiatrists. Concrete steps need to be chalked out to bring in discipline in story, comedy and songs. Instead of going overboard, there should be a line drawn for every aspect of tiatr. Internal conflict in the tiatr fraternity is the effect and follow-up of commercial tiatrs mushrooming today in the Goan society. Constraint has to be exercised and more than the culprits, the tiatr directors need to be penalised for non-control of vulgarity and individual criticism, which has to be avoided at all costs.
