Day: December 18, 2008

Art and activism have often been a point of both controversy and discussion among left-leaning individuals since Renaissance. Artists accused activists of mere sloganeering and bondage to strict ideology; activists alleged artists of often falling into the trap of sheer individualism and consequently, betraying their shared dream of human freedom. The fight over who’s right on the Left has been on since then, but no one has responded to it more significantly than Dario Fo – an Italian by birth and a Marxist by choice.

Fo says: “Although, this is often used with negative connotations, I see ideology as an inherent part of culture.” And so does he do in his plays. He mixes ideology with art, spices it up with humour, presents it in a cultural frame, and finally provokes his audiences to get active or, at least, think. And this is exactly what one of Fo’s fans, Rahat Kazmi, has done with an adaptation of Fo’s play, Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! Theadaptation is titled ‘Jungle Main Mangal Bazaar’ and is currently being staged by the Napa Repertory Theatre Company (NRTC) at the Arts Council Theatre till December 21st.

The play begins with a social paradox about what may happen if inflation forces the working and middle classes to openly steal the day-to-day articles from utility stores. And since, to a common man, there seems to be no way out of the current economic crisis, Fo’s allegory happens in reality. But is this the right way? Well, Fo has a alternate answer to it all together.

Fo, and so does Mr. Kazmi, suggest for a revolution of the people, by the people, and for the people. Their call is to radically eradicate, or rather work out, the problems faced by the society and state at large. Hell, so does say Karl Marx!

To push the Marxist envelope, Fo provokes his audiences to look at the elaborations of the German old man one last time if his analysis can work out for the better of the world. And then one begins to wonder if Marx was really right when he claimed that “all human history is the history of class struggle.”

I certainly don’t mean to deny Marx’s statement. But my sense of amazement gets a green signal when I look around and see my own people, my culture and the very class I belong to. Marx does seem to me wrong, as I don’t find a struggle here, let alone a class struggle. However my mind propels to go round in circles and I fail to find a reason for not having a struggle at all, when all the ingredients required are available. To name a few, I dare say, are political bankruptcy, rising inflation, corrupt bureaucracy, workers’ downsizing, war on terror, stagnated social morality and so on so forth.

But, one may ask, when will people rise up? When will they change what needs to be changed? Fo answers: someday, one day. Nevertheless he gives a moral push to his audiences, as one of his characters says that “our inactiveness is not the solution to anything (aforementioned)”. He is right. Take for example, inflation. It has interestingly become a shared topic among us citizens of both negligence and day-to-day talk, like it was in Italy when Fo wrote this well-crafted political comedy back in the 70`s.

Fo cries out for a revolutionary change in his dramatic work, which employs comedic methods of the ancient Italian Commedia dell’ Arte – a theatrical style popular with the proletarian class. Like most of his plays, this onehas a clown who creates an effect of silliness on stage and does his tricks to entertain the audiences. In the meantime, he tries to infuse in viewers what is religiously known as the socialist poison.

Following Fo’s method in this play, Mr. Kazmi has created a localized clown who is a police inspector, an investigator with socialist ideas, a casket-maker and an old father. With his clownish habits, this character, or rather characters, is the focus of the play. However, he is traditionally and technically not the protagonist. But his existence on stage makes him what may be called the Fo factor.

For example Mr. Kazmi’s clown, which is played by Salman Shahid, changes tone, gestures, get-ups in a jiff and mimes out bold issues, such as the process of pregnancy and baby transplantation. Not being afraid of elaborating what is considered a common secret among eastern women, Mr. Kazmi – being the director of the play – exposes boldly our social state of affairs quite like a game of magic on stage.

As the chronic disease of indifference in people over socio-political affairs lingers at large outside the theatre hall, this piece of art seems to give its audiences a radical way to look at what our situation is and what sort of social activism is required to make this world a better place for the poor, and not anymore for the rich this time.
Published in The News International (Op-Ed), in December, 2008.