Why Barricade Is Gaining Popularity

Barricade is a poignant political play for today's times.

A certain political play is gaining popularity in Mumbai.

Its name is Barricade.

Originally written by Utpal Dutt in 1972, in Bengali, it was translated into English in 2022, in a compelling scholarly way by Professor Anand Lal, a critic, journalist and researcher based in Kolkata. While staging how the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the play subtly references India, and 1970s Kolkata.

When documentary filmmaker and theatre director Sunil Shanbag read the translated version a year ago, he felt it just might resonate with Mumbai audiences.

But he had his doubts as well. Times had changed. So had audiences. Tolerance was a thing of the past.

His initial hesitation needed to be seen in the context of the altered Indian political environment -- where arrests of journalists, comedians, cartoonists, political opponents were comonplace -- that would not endure any questioning; criticism was off the table. In such a climate to stage these kinds of plays is complicated.

"It was not an easy decision to make to produce this play," Shanbag explains to Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar. "But instinctively one felt it could connect with the audience. That is something I could see after every show; people would come and talk to us and made the connection themselves."

"It is so contemporary in so many ways," Shanbag adds. "We have only edited the length and removed the prologue. That apart, we have done nothing to the play."

Last month Barricade ran full house at the Experimental Theatre, Natiional Centre for the Performing Arts in south Mumbai. It has already been running for some time at venues in north Mumbai.

It seems Shanbag was right about his gamble. This kind of political play could touch audiences even if they are not aware of these historical events.

And even though the synopsis of the play, published in a pamphlet available at the theatre entrance, pretty much alerted folks who had come to see the play, what to expect: 'A powerful allegory of our times, this story is told through the perspective of various characters, who find their lives changed by these events -- the honest journalist, the corrupt newspaper editor, Nazi officials, an upright judge and the detached intellectual'.

Shanbag compliments Dutt's play extravagantly, "Utpal Dutt has used the device of an allegory, which is (that) you place something in another time historically and leave it to the audience to find the connection."

"It does two things, because it places it in a different context, you are able to view it somewhat objectively and this helps you, because your brain kicks in and you are thinking.

"Also, when you watch something being played out in another country, in an unfamiliar language, references, etc, all that keeps your mind ticking. That is a deliberate critical strategy devised by Utpal Dutt.

"In an allegory everything can't be one plus one is two. He has fictionalised it a bit and used dramatic liberty. You don't need to change specificities of a situation. People are smart enough to make these connections."

It is pertinent at this juncture to point out that Dutt was best known as an actor of the Bengali theatre. But he was also a director who founded the Little Theatre Group in Calcutta, and a writer-playwright too, writing on controversial topics like illegal hoarding of food grain or problems of democracy. He wrote about the times he lived in and challenged the ruling class, whichever government was in power, that lead to his being arrested a few times.

"I staged it differently at the Experimental. I deliberately put up the play on a raised platform furthering the disconnect with the audience," says Shanbag. "I could have easily put it on the floor and the angle of viewing could have been far more normal and intimate. The idea was to distance it a little bit."

In Barricade, Shanbag has worked on every character and they have all played pivotal roles. The play literally takes you back to those dark times, with stage props reflecting the desolate days that had fallen on the country.

Archival newspapers were hung on the tall stands, video footage in German was used. At one point a recording of Walter Kaufmann's String Quartet No 11 played (incidentally when composer Kaufmann, a Jew, fled Germany, he came to live in India from 1937 to 1946 and worked in Bombay as a director of music at All India Radio and composed the signature tune for All India Radio; he also established the Bombay Chamber Music Society along with Mehli Mehta and taught Zubin Mehta).

Says Shanbag: "I also think giving it a specific context helps the authenticity of what one is watching. Otherwise it is (just a) two-dimensional view of putting things across. The use of archival footage for me was also to give a very strong specificity. I think the way you see the crowd swirling around Hitler you will draw parallels in your mind. People understand these things."

There was murmuring amongst the audience during the play, when I saw it, with people drawing references to various points in Indian history.

During a time when tolerance for creativity is believed to be, perhaps, on the wane, this play definitely makes the audience sit up and think.

It's a play needed for our times and a signal for people to come together.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com