There is no doubt that tiatr is the most commerciallysuccessful dramatic form of Goa. No other form, be it Marathi, Konkani orEnglish drama has such a huge following. Thousands of tiatrs are performedevery year in Goa and outside. Very often, each tiatr is staged hundreds oftimes in different parts of Goa. At venues like Kala Academy and RavindraBhavan, the same tiatr is repeated 10 to 20 times respectively. With all thiscommercial success, is it possible to say that the standard of tiatr is on parwith the Marathi or Konkani drama? I am afraid not.
It is a fact that during 120 years of its existence tiatrhas grown in all aspects. The scripts have shown tremendous improvement duringthe last 25 years. Today’s tiatr highlights social, political, religious andother issues prevailing in the Goan society. The stage setting too hasundergone a meaningful change. Creative stage sets are prepared to make theperformance of tiatr more effective and attractive. This attitude of directorshas resulted in improving the standard of acting too. To some extent background music as well aslighting are used in making the performance effective.
The other equally important ingredient of tiatr is the songsor ‘kantaram’ sung in between the acts (Pordhes) of the tiatr. These songs haveno relevance to the story of the tiatr. They are based on various issues inGoan society. The quality of the lyrics has improved and the music too hasshown some progress. There are numerous singers with melodious voices on thetiatr stage in present times too. Taking all these happenings intoconsideration one can conclude that the tiatr of today is far more advancedthan the tiatr of the yesteryears.
However in my opinion the standard of tiatr cannot becompared to the standard of dramas in Konkani or Marathi. This is becauseentertainment is the focus of a tiatr. People are happy if comedy in general isprovided in the presentation of the tiatr. Technical aspects, creativity andoriginality play second fiddle as far as producers, directors and the audienceis concerned. It is because of this attitude that stage sets change when thetiatr is staged in different villages, background music’ and light effects arenot considered seriously, directors do not fulfil their duties in the true senseof the word, sometimes kantaram of low standard are presented, melodies ofsongs mostly are copied either from Hindi or English compositions, musicdirectors do not compose original music.
All these drawbacks continue to exist because the audiencetoo do not mind if enough entertainment is provided to them. And our tiatrartists do exactly the same. In other words we have failed to take the tiatrstage towards professionalism although commercially there is no other dramaticform to beat the success of tiatr in Goa.
The standard of tiatr is different from its popularity. Thestandard includes creativity, originality and perfection in staging a tiatr.Hence, Goan tiatr needs professional approach to its production. With thecommercial backing that the tiatr has, if we succeed in introducingprofessionalism as one of its aspects, it can be one of the best dramatic formsin the country.
