Making Brecht UnBrechtian But Is that a Good Thing? Brechtian Epic as Alienated Melodrama in India

Abstract

This paper looks at the practice of rupantor in the Bengali group theatre movement as a process of translation in which “the original text, as well as the recipient tradition in which it is being adapted undergoes a transformation” (Roy 2000, 320). I analyse Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay’s adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan as Bhalomanush. This adaptation is read alongside the contemporary critical reaction to these adaptations in Bengali by theatre critics like Samik Bandyopadhyay, directors and playwrights like Utpal Dutt, as well as newspaper reviews, and recent reactions to archival remnants of the play on YouTube. I argue that the critics’ disavowal of the adaptation fundamentally misunderstands the role of theatre translation where the theatre must speak to a public audience in the here and now of the performance and its audiences. A fundamental departure from the original in stage adaptations is necessary for this audience and, following Fredric Jameson’s reading of Brecht, a “useful” process. This is inevitable under the material conditions of practising theatre in Bengal where conditions were very different from the one Brecht was facing when working with the Berliner Ensemble.