Every household has at least one TV set with a hundredchannels. Yet tiatr loving Goans prefer to buy tickets, travel to the auditoriaand witness a tiatr. Due to this, I am of the opinion that tiatr performersshould strive to improve the standard of their performance.
One of the important methods to improve tiatr is thecritical appreciation of the performance of the tiatr. A critical appreciationinvolves impartial views of a knowledgeable person who evaluates the performance,lists all the plus points and at the same time draws the attention of thedirector to the drawbacks in the performance. Unfortunately such an exercise israrely carried out.
We read reviews ofpractically all the tiatrs staged in Goa in the newspapers and magazines inEnglish as well as in Konkani (Roman script). If one goes through these reviewsone would think that tiatrs are flawless. This is because the reviewerhighlights only the good points of the performance and does not make any mentionof the shortcomings. It appears to me that our writers, directors, singers,actors, etc are simply flattered through such reviews. This attitude ofreviewers has contributed in not motivating our writers, directors, actors andsingers to improve their performances.
I recently watched four very popular tiatrs. I also read thereviews of these tiatrs written by various critics in the English and Konkanipress. No doubt the tiatrs are good and liked by the people, because of populardemand these tiatrs are staged again and again. However, I felt that, if the drawbacks in the performances were broughtto the notice of the directors, they would have definitely taken steps tocorrect those shortcomings while producing or directing their future projects.Such an exercise would have not only benefited the writers and directors butalso in the all-round development of tiatrs.
For example, comedy is a very important component of atiatr. In tiatrs, comedy is interwoven in the main story of the play. In otherwords, the comedy sequences must be a part and parcel of the main story of thetiatr. In many tiatrs this does not take place. Here, comedy sequences have norelation to the main play. It appears that they are acted only to createlaughter among the audience. In fact this type of comedy, although entertainingfor the people, brings down the quality of the script and hence the standard oftiatrs.
Stage setting, yet another aspect of a good performance,needs to be taken care of. The main set,on which most of the story is depicted is beautifully done. But when differentincidents, comedy as well as serious scenes, are enacted using the curtain as abackdrop, the beautiful impression created by the first set is vanished in theminds of the critics. Therefore the writer has to take care while writing theplay whether he can base his story on more than one setting. I don’t think itis appropriate to make use of the curtains for acting of different scenes in the21st century.
Yet another defect I witnessed is the tendency of the actorsin the play to come closer to the microphones leaving all the stage setting atthe back, and deliver their dialogues. Because of this numerous props of thestage setting remain unused. This affects the direction of the play adversely. Backgroundmusic and light effects needs a lot of improvement. For me a reviewer or acritic is a part and parcel of the process of development of tiatr. His reviewsmust help in improving the standard of tiatr. No dramatic stage in the worldhas improved without constructive criticism. Hence no critic or reviewer shouldhesitate in writing constructive criticism of our tiatrs.
Tomazinho Cardozo is the former president of the TAG
