early proscenium theatre and silent cinema in india

understanding the  scenic convention

The influence of the proscenium theatre in the creation of the first  generation of actors and actresses in Indian cinema is immense. Such an  influence challenges the hegemony of the west and helps us detect a film  tradition of our own.

‘New forms of pleasures arrive with the  development of the society. Among other forms of  pleasure brought to this country by the British  civilization were drinking and theatre. While liquor  has opened up the fountainhead of evil, theatre has  been created for social reform . . .’ 1

Tpopular theatre of late 19 and early 20  century and early Indian cinema explains  how both mediums had shared, among  other things, a common but powerful  narrative mode of storytelling, a scenic convention that  depended heavily on the concept of theatrical pictorial  frame and an acting style that was unashamedly  melodramatic. Proscenium theatre had indeed  considered cinema an extension of itself and cinema’s  interaction with theatre had created a new category of  ‘theatrical entertainment’ that can be truly termed as  ‘photoplay’, a technologically hybrid way of presenting  plays or stories that could be narrated theatrically with  the help of moving images. The use of two­dimensional, realistically painted scenic backdrops  along with real props helped the theatre director /  filmmaker to visualize the cinematic frame —  composition, mise-en-scene and camera placement in  early cinema. Even theatrical set designing and stage  décor had found a ready space in early studio  productions while the conventions of theatre lighting  had directly influenced studio lighting. Proscenium  theatre had not only provided the first and second  generations of actors and actresses to cinema, who  brought with them their own distinct melodramatic  style of performance, but also music and singing styles  when sound film became a reality. The idea of special  effects in cinema directly descended from spectacular  stagecraft techniques which were abundant in  mythological and pauranik plays. But the spectacular and  melodramatic proscenium theatre and its convention of  the pictorial stage had to surrender to cinema with the  advent of talkies in the 1930s — a time when the  technology of cinema became significantly standard­ized and perfected by the studio system. By that time  cinema had inherited the best of popular theatre,  reshaped it with photographic realism and continued in  its own way to cater to the same audience who once  patronized theatre. Popular cinema was destined to  replace popular theatre by becoming ‘theatrical-like’  with new vigor and new cinematic gimmicks made  possible by the new technology.

instrumental in popularizing calendar art in India.  He is  also considered by a section of film historians as a key  figure in influencing film pioneers like D. G. Phalke and  thus indirectly giving Indian cinema its distinct look. 

Varma is often projected as a catalyst appearing at a very  crucial historical juncture in Indian visual and  performing arts who successfully not only connected  the past with the present, but also technology with  mythology, and modernity with traditionalism. Varma’s  use of western painting techniques in depicting  mythological themes, an attempt that supposedly  delineated an essentially pan-Indian aesthetic tradition,  has been hailed as a path-breaking effort to revive  through the arts a truly ‘Indian / nationalist’ spirit. This  leads to the belief that Ravi Varma’s artistic expression  is rooted in a grand narrative of traditionalism that is  eternal. Some art historians argued that like Ravi Varma,  who used his knowledge of western painting to paint  scenes of Indian mythology, Phalke, his predecessor,  too worked in the same spirit by taking advantage of the what Varma had attained in painting. Both worked  within the same grand narrative. While one fixed  dramatic moments in painting, the other used live  characters to enact and narrate the same in the cinematic  form. The danger of such theorization lies in its  fundamentalist notion of invention of a tradition for  visual arts in India, including cinema, that supposedly  carried the legacy of Varma in a different medium  altogether. However, the fact remains that Ravi Varma’s  mythological paintings depicting emotional moments  or different rasa-s evolved not out of his reading of the  Natyashastra but of contemporary popular proscenium  theatre. There is no proof that Ravi Varma had actually  seriously studied the Natyashastra or books on Indian  dramaturgy to develop his own artistic sensibility. On  the other hand, the diary of his brother Raja Varma2  clearly shows that how, after a frustrating search  throughout India for a pan-Indian model, Ravi finally  found it in popular proscenium theatre — a pictorial  reference and a source to visualize pauranik Indian themes that could be presented in a glossy spectacular  manner and as a commercial venture. Commenting on  Varma’s work art historian Tapati Guha Thakurta said,

Legends also took on a more compulsive narrative force, as  painting begun to equate the thrill and drama of stage  performances, with the same theatrical gestures and  expressions of figures and the use of special lighting.

Plucked out of an ongoing spectacle of episodes, these  scenes appeared like frozen tableaux, almost like stills from  a moving film, arrested by a set of frozen gazes and  gestures.3 Popular proscenium theatre of the late 19th and early 20 century was a spectacular form modeled on western  proscenium theatre and was famous for its trick scenes  and naturalistically painted backdrops. In Bengal  proscenium theatre had faced colonial anger because it  became a means for expressing anti-colonial sentiment  through a new crop of realistic plays criticizing and  satirizing the British. The introduction of the  Prevention of Dramatic Performances Act of 1876, an  act that did not spare the playwright, manager, director,  actor, audience and owner of theatre, forced popular  theatre to hide behind mythological and semi-historical  plays that had apparently no relation to contemporary  reality. These mythological and pseudo-historical plays  were spectacular and lavish productions with lots of  songs and dances where three-dimensional painted  backdrops were used for the first time in India to infuse  a much-desired scenic realism along with new stagecraft  techniques to create magical effects very realistically. Of  all proscenium theatres, the Parsee theatre excelled in  several fields. It was first to hire European painters to  draw naturalistic sceneries in western style for its  productions.  In Bengal service of the patuas or local  artisans untrained in western techniques were often  sought.4 Parsee theatre companies were backed by rich  Parsee businessmen and could afford to spend money  on costumes and effects, and to import theatre gadgets  required for staging special trick scenes. It was the same  desire for theatrical naturalism that had also encouraged  popular theatre to hire the services of prostitutes to  replace female impersonators. But in many cases early  proscenium theatre had little or no respect for historical  authenticity in scenic representation. Girish Chandra  Ghosh, the famous actor-manager who revolutionized  proscenium theatre in Bengal, had realized that the  success of the spectacular proscenium theatre in India  did not simply depend in mastering the western art of  scenic design, but also on developing a keen sense  history to give visual legitimacy to such representations  as required by a play. Commenting on the lack of  historical authenticity in visualizing a play he lamented, There exists a scene of a king’s court painted long ago. All  the kings of the world have appeared in that court. The poto  (patua / village artist) does not know what a palace should  look like; dressmaker does not know about a king’s dress,  the wigmaker has never seen a king. . .5 

The emergence of silent cinema coincided with the  development of popular proscenium theatre at the  beginning of twentieth century when the theater-going  public thronged the halls to see new spectacles staged by  Marathi, Bengali and Parsee proscenium theatre  companies.  Stiff competition between rival theatre  companies had engaged the actor-managers in inventing  new gimmicks for every new play with freshly painted  spectacular scenes and impressive sets, innovative  special effects, glossy costumes, catchy dialogues with  loads of songs and dances to enthrall the audience.

Theatre advertisements and reviews from contempo­rary newspapers illustrate the kind of spectacular scenes  popular in those days:

Raja Rani: ‘Kashmir of the yesteryear was recreated  in front of our eyes. It is not an ordinary affair that  the producer did not try to fool us by showing  Bengali houses as Kashmiri. . . .We are more than  satisfied with the sets, dress and make-up. No other  theatre has done it so faultlessly so far. . .’ 6

Shahjahan: ‘The pleasure garden of Kashiraj was  beautiful, the boats, the lake — all very good.’ 7

Chandragupta: ‘The play was magnificent and special  mention must be made of the opening scene where  Alexander the Great meet Chandragupta on the  bank of Indus.’ 8

Nabajouban : “The kind of scene of a fair shown in  this play has never been attempted in this country. A  huge fairground with rows of stalls whose roofs  were made of hogla leafs. Birds are being sold at one  place, painted earthen utensils are sold at another  place; snake-charmers are playing… the fairground  is full of various attractions and is drawing huge  crowd. This is an amazing, wonderful scene.’ 9 Attempts in scenic visualization indeed helped the  growth of spectacular theatre while some actor­managers went as far as using live animals on stage to  enhance the impression of reality.  In this respect, film  had a significant advantage because of the camera’s  inherent ability to capture details within a frame, a  specificity that neither the filmmaker nor the theatre  director could ignore. In fact, proscenium theatre  started to pay more attention to scenic design by  emphasizing on the details allowing the audience to  appreciate theatre as a coherent realistic visual  experience rather than merely enjoying the perfor­mance.  Chandidas was one of such productions that illustrates cinema’s influence on theatre:

In the second scene we see Rami’s hut. A thatched roofed  hut. A small dawa (place to sit) adjunct to the hut. A small  courtyard bordered with rangchita (hedge); At one side of  the courtyard there is a dochala room; a dhenki (wooden  contraption used for husking) is already fixed there, at  another side two huge earthen pots; there is a siuli plant  nearby . . . The first scene of the third act: Rami’s courtyard.

The hut is completely brunt down. Only burnt and broken  wall is seen. The place is full of brunt thatches and bamboo;

the siuli tree has also brunt down — only the leafless  branches are seen. . .10

Or consider, for example, the ‘cinematic’ scenic  design of Grihaprabesh:

We have never experienced such details in scene designing  except probably in Chirakumar Sabha . . .The clean section  of Jatin’s incomplete house had a ceiling, floor, wall,  balcony, door. Real objects were used instead of the  traditional way of painting everything with colour on cloth,  which created a believable realistic effect. The door fitted  with a glass handle, window with glass, Venetian spring door designer glass, the wall with several electric lamps and  switches, a model of the Taj Mahal in a glass case in Jatin’s  room, painting of the Kutub Minar and Jumma Masjid and  other historical architectures on wall, the stone table and  medicines on it, the neat and clean bookcase, the clean bed  of the sick person, the doctor’s chair, the ‘moras’ (low seats  made of bamboo sticks) for the nurses, a clothe-hanger in  the next room, a covered bed, a low table with food for the  sick person, spirit stove and utensils for making food, the  cup in the triangular hole in the wall. Hot-water bag. All of  these created such a sense of realism on stage which was  bound to touch the minds of the viewers.11

The art of visualization in proscenium theatre, as  evident in the above examples, had evolved significantly  by the time of the advent of early studio cinema.  A  handful of theatre directors, including Sishir Bhaduri  and later Sambhu Mitra of Indian People’s Theatre  Association, aimed for authentic scenic realism with  cinematic details rather than glossy spectacles and  mesmerizing trick scenes.

Cinema in its formative years looked forward to  proscenium theatre which had thrived on its power of  creating spectacular theatrical illusions complete with  stunts, trick scenes and naturalistic sceneries – all  essential elements of mythic, puranik or pseudo-historic  plays. The budding film industry naturally found the  proscenium theatre as a viable source from which it  freely drew not only attractive stories and scenic design  techniques but also the basic technique of ‘staging’ or  organizing the action in front of the camera. In fact,  starting from films like Pudalik (1912) and Raja  Harischandra (1913) most of the silent Indian films were  actually screen adaptations of popular plays whose  framing, composition and overall dramaturgy were  more theatrical than cinematic. The style of staging in  silent cinema was marked by its static camera with little  or no movement of the frame, scenes mounted as  tableaux in which action usually took place at the centre  of the frame, actors performed facing the camera that  substituted the imaginary theatre spectators. The  melodramatic acting style evident in early cinema also  epitomizes the early filmmakers’ belief in theatre and  theatrical representation, which they tried to retain  faithfully in cinematic form. Early Indian cinema was  primarily filmed theatre or photo-plays.  During the first  few decades it seldom ventured into adaptations from  literature, which required a certain mastery in screenplay  writing — an unfamiliar technique — and certain  control on staging the scene cinematically. Makers of  silent films, most of whom were actually theatre  professionals, were more comfortable in using theatre  actors and actresses freely because they knew the play  texts well and had no problem in acting in front of the  camera. From them cinema did not demand any special or modified acting style since the first generation of film  directors believed melodramatic acting was the  legitimate mode of cinematic performance.  As a result  these actors and actresses brought to cinema their own  distinct acting styles marked by high theatrical gestures  and postures, make-up and costumes. Dancing, singing,  and other musical conventions prevalent in theatre were  also introduced to cinema when sound film became a  reality in India.

It was indeed theatre that had invented and  successfully used techniques like fade in, fade out,  dissolve and cross-cutting between scenes much before  cinema. The spectacular stage presented magical effects  with the help of new gadgets very realistically. The  appearance and disappearances of such devices as  divine characters, transformations, decapitation, and  floating in air were very common tricks seen again and  again in mythological plays. Some examples of visual  effects or trick scenes are noteworthy:

Mayur Simhasan (1909): Man burnt alive

Cleopetra (1914) Colourful festival on a ship.

Reflection on water

Singhal Vijay (1915): Roaring sea, waves smashing  on the shore

Apsara (1922): Garland from lord Siva’s neck flies  and falls on the hunter and the hunter transforms to  lord Siva

Sudama (1922): Boat crossing a roaring river. Sumati  tries to commit suicide by jumping in a pond and  water dries up instantly. Fairies transform a forest  into a pleasure garden

Karnarjun (1923):  Stone statue transforms into live  character. Arrow pierces the eye of a bird.

Dushmasan could not disrobe Draupadi.

Brishaketu is cut  into two.

Sri Krishana (1926): The prison bars melt to let  Krishna escape. The Sudarshan cakra flies and cuts  off the head of Sishupal. The headless body is seen  shivering for sometime.

Sri Ramchandra (1927): Wooden boat turns into a  gold one by the touch of Lord Rama. Lanka burns  to ashes.

Moger Muluk (1927): Aurangjeb riding an elephant.

The elephant becomes unruly and puts to chain.

Fullora (1928): A disguised Mahamaya turns into  goddess Durga with ten hands

Mantrashakti (1929): Station waiting-room and a  train at a distance.

The idea of special effects in cinema had directly  descended from these spectacular stagecraft techniques  that were frequent in popular theatre. G. D. Phalke, who used special effects in mythological films like Raja  Harishchandra or Kalia Mardan, had merely used the  technological devices of cinema to create effects that  had been created on stage regularly with the help of  theatrical contraptions. The film Shiva Ratri (1921) for  example, advertised five major special effect scenes  titled as ‘Thrilling Miracles’. There were several flight  scenes such as ‘ascent of sati’s spirit to heaven’, ‘the  hunter’s spirit taken to Shiva Loka’ and ‘the descent of  Goddess Parvati from heaven’. Another 1921 film titled  Nala Damayanti, an adaptation from a very popular play  had many stage trick scenes recreated on screen. There  were several ‘transformation’ scenes, a popular stage  technique, used in the film: goddess Kali transforming  into a serpent, transformation of the king of serpents, a  magic fire that transforms king Nala to Bhauk, etc.

There were also ‘aerial flight’ scenes and a scene in which  swans brought the message of love.

The influence of popular theatre was however not  limited to copying the trick scenes or using painted  sceneries in a theatrical manner. The art of set design in  theatre and the technique of stage décor had found a  ready space in early studio-based productions while the  convention of theatre lighting had directly influenced  studio lighting. The studios faithfully adapted the  convention of illuminating the pictorial stage in the  silent era. Use of theatrical make-up needed to be modified to suit the ‘slow-speed’ orthochromatic film  that failed to respond to low-key lighting or to all colours  and hues equally and faithfully. One might add here that  the first generation of sound recording equipments had  a very limited range, which dictated a certain acting style  with greater control on voice and modulation that  needed ample training. Being professionally trained and  experienced, many of the theatre actors had no problem  in adjusting themselves to the technological specifica­tions of early cinema. While theatre was nurturing  cinema, providing it with its best actors, directors,  dancers, singers, writers, scenic designers, dressers,  make-up men, and lighting technicians, the technology  of cinema had been perfected and standardized  significantly, thus enabling the filmmakers to standard­ize the process of adaptation also. Popular cinema was  destined to replace popular theatre by becoming  ‘theatrical-like’ itself with a new vigor provided by the  new technology. As a result, a new crop of sound films  emerged that had quickly evolved a cinematic language,  retaining the essence and power of the spectacular  proscenium theatre while at the same time using filmic  devices skillfully to give this cinematic visualization a  distinct character. With the advent of sound around  early 1930s proscenium theatre started to lose its glory  and had to submit to the fast growing popularity of  sound films – a new cinema which retained not only the  best of proscenium theatre but also succeeded in  casting its own magical spell on the audience.

1. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 18th March 1872
2. Diary of Raja Varma, OUP,
3. The Making of a New ‘Indian’ Art, Tapati Guha Thakurata, Cambridge  University Press, 1992, p 108
4. In R. Kipling ‘s Kim there is a reference of a western painter accompanying traveling theatre troupe as a scenery painter.
5. Girishchandrer Natya Chinta, Ed. Probodhbandhu Adhikari, Calcutta, 1978
6. Sishir, 31st August, 1923
7. Sishir, 15th November 1924
8. The Englishman, 2nd November, 1923
9. Naachghar, 8th August, 1926
10. Naachghar, 3rd Year, 29th issue, 1932
11. Naachghar, 2nd Year, 29th Issue, 1925

Biren Das Sharma is a film writer and archivist.  He teaches Film  Appreciation at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute in  Kolkata.

The influence of the proscenium theatre in the creation of the first  generation of actors and actresses in Indian cinema is immense. Such an  influence challenges the hegemony of the west and helps us detect a film  tradition of our own. ‘New forms of pleasures arrive with the  development of the society. Among other forms…