Modernisms Advance Postsama Dramatists 2019

Chapter 4
Modernism’s Advance
Post-Sama Dramatists
For a long time, this fire has been burning within me.
—Gopal Prasad Rimal1
Nepal’s sudden opening to the outside world brought to the literati new theories
of society, psychology, and philosophy. The social realism of Norwegian
playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) found its way to the sequestered kingdom
and exerted a powerful influence on modern Nepali dramatists. Guided by
the pioneering efforts of Balkrishna Sama (1903–1981), young dramatists
eagerly turned from traditional, historical, and mythological topics to the
social commentary and psychological explorations of European naturalists,
realists, and existentialists. To critique society in dramatic form, playwrights
went beyond Sama’s poetic idealism towards the possibilities inherent in
realism. Absorbing the work of the European theoreticians and artists, and
following the path that Sama carved for them through the jungles of Parsi-
imitation and frivolous entertainment, the dramatists of Nepali modernism
(Uprety, 2007) arrived at geo-centric themes, psychological explorations, and
relatively realistic characters speaking in their native tongue—unheard on
the stage before Sama’s ground-breaking work 2. In Professor and playwright
Abhi Subedi’s words, dramatists became ‘interested in the individuality of
1
Gopal Prasad Rimal in Masan translated by Sangita Rayamajhi (2006: 5).
2
See the previous chapter of this book for more on Balkrishna Sama.
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Nov 2019 at 06:33:48, subject to the
Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108596428.005
Modernism’s Advance 41
the character whose main conflict is with the society and also with various
impulses within his or her own mind’.3
Sama urged Gopal Prasad Rimal (1918–1973) to read Ibsen’s plays and to pay
attention to the ‘themes of social and family values and the pain and struggle
between men and women’ (Subedi, 2006: 127). Now considered Nepal’s ‘first
naturalistic playwright’ (ibid.: 99), Rimal appears to have written his play Masan
(Cremation Ground, 1946) under the influence of the Norwegian naturalist
playwright, although the degree of Ibsen’s presence in Rimal’s Masan has been
debated in Nepal in the decades since its initial production. When Nepali
scholars speak of Ibsen’s impact on dramaturgy, it seems they actually mean
the influence of one play in particular. Et dukkehjem (A Doll’s House, 1879) more
than any other Ibsen play appears to resonate most deeply with Nepal’s theatre
makers, audiences, and scholars. Little is written about the effect of other
major Ibsen works such as the romantic Brand (1865), the folkloric Peer Gynt
(1867), Ibsen’s first contemporary realist drama, Samfundets stotter (The Pillars
of Society, 1877), or his symbolic masterpiece, Vildanden (The Wild Duck, 1884).4
Ibsen’s strong heroine, Nora, and her final stalwart decision at the end of Et
dukkehjem, appear to speak eloquently about the condition of Nepali women.
While Ibsen’s influence on certain aspects of Rimal’s dramaturgy seems
clear, there are also important dissimilarities between Masan and A Doll’s
House. Masan exhibits cultural idiosyncrasies that clearly show divergence
from the Norwegian. For example, Rimal’s protagonist Helen (The Young
Woman, as he lists her in the script) is unable to bear children. Searching for
a means of carrying on the family line and becoming the mother she always
wanted to be, psychologically, if not physically, Helen persuades her husband
to take a younger second wife to bear children. Nepali audiences might take
in stride this basic premise of the play, accustomed, as they may have been, to
the practice of polygamy. A Norwegian playwright aiming at realism would
not have included such a trope in his basic premise, since his audiences would
have found this practice exotic and unrealistic.
Both Helen and the younger second wife (named Bride in the text) are wilful
women. Bride scoffs at help when she becomes ill and dies soon after giving
3
Personal interview with the author conducted in Kathmandu at Mandala Book Point
in 2001.
4
The exception to this was the 2006 International Ibsen Theatre Festival and Conference
in Kathmandu, organized by Aarohan Gurukul, which resulted in performances and
the publication of the book, Ibsen: Beyond Time and Space. While this publication does
offer commentary on other Ibsen plays, even here the focus remains on A Doll’s House.
42 Theatre of Nepal and the People Who Make It
birth to her husband’s only child. At this point, near the end of the play, the
husband Krishna confesses to Helen, ‘You don’t know it but you could not
conceive because of me. Without letting you know, I fed you medicine that
prevented you from conceiving. Now you understand that I wanted to keep you
all to myself ’ (Rimal, 2006: 51). Krishna not only didn’t want to share Helen
with a child but he also didn’t want her to lose her beautiful face and youthful
body to the accelerated aging brought on by childbearing. With his narcissistic
logic, Krishna had denied Helen the option of ever becoming pregnant and
bearing children, or even having control over her own body.
Upon learning of the selfish actions that robbed her of her deepest desire,
Helen determines to leave her home and husband. Here, echoing Ibsen’s Nora,
Helen says to her husband, ‘From today your path and mine will split. You go
your way, I will go mine’ (ibid.: 57). While Krishna begs her to stay with him,
Helen crosses to the door, saying, ‘If you really say you will not let me go, then
take my dead body and live with it. In a way I have never been a wife to you,
but an object of your desire, your mistress. You have made my life meaningless’
(ibid.: 59). Because she now sees their home as no better than a crematorium
(masan), Helen leaves—perhaps slamming the door behind her, just as Nora
left and slammed the door ‘heard round the world’. Clearly, the ending and
other plot elements are indebted to Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Like Ibsen’s Nora,
Rimal’s Helen finds the strength to oppose her husband and, ‘although she
demonstrates a vital connection to her [adopted] child, she finally quits her
home’ (Sharma, 2001).5
Rimal’s Masan was the first major work of Nepali dramatic literature to
bring ‘a rebellious woman on stage’ (Subedi, 2006: 128). The character of the
‘proto-feminist’ (Hartsell, 2007: 9) Helen may be just one of the reasons that
Masan, written in 1946, was kept off the stage until 1950, until after democracy
stirred, after censorship was eased, and after citizens were able to enjoy more
personal freedoms.
Rimal had begun his artistic activities as a poet while the Ranas still held
Nepal in their tight grip.6 Rimal’s revolutionary poetry, as well as his efforts
to organize rebellious activities against the Ranas, had landed him in jail.
Traumatized for the rest of his life by the torture he suffered in prison, Rimal
was later considered to be mentally unstable.7
5
In discussion with the author at the Royal Nepal Academy in Kathmandu.
6
For more on the Ranas, see Chapter 2 of this book.
7
See Pradhan and A. Subedi (2006).
The defeatist and nihilistic quality of Rimal’s other major play—Yo Prem
(This Love, 1956)8—may be an expression of undiagnosed post-traumatic stress.
A ‘strong satire on the practice of polygamy which then had social sanction’
(Pradhan, 1984: 186), Yo Prem not only dramatizes tensions in relationships of
the urban-middle class but also probes the psychology, emotions, and guilt
of the characters. Like Masan, this play demonstrates concern for difficulties
faced by a woman in a patriarchal society. Rather than leaving the home, as in
Masan—perhaps a somewhat unrealistic option for Nepali women at the time
(Rayamajhi, 2003)—the heroine of Yo Prem ‘tries to assert her freedom without
leaving her home’ (Pradhan, 1984: 186), yet succeeds in getting a divorce from
her self-indulgent husband. Nonetheless, the play ends tragically, leaving the
viewer with the feeling that such freedom is neither possible nor desirable.
In 1941, Gopal Prasad Rimal formed a theatre group with friends, including
Hari Prasad Rimal (b.1925) who had been taught by Balkrishna Sama at the
Durbar School. Their Gauri Shankar theatre group performed Sama’s plays,
among others, with Hari Prasad Rimal both acting and directing. Hari Prasad
Rimal had a falling-out with his acting teacher Balkrishna Sama when his
acting became more natural and less declamatory. With this new style, Hari
Prasad essentially became ‘a bridge between the theatre of the late 19th and
the early 20th centuries’ (Subedi, 2006: 99). Other members of Gauri Shankar
theatre group were Govinda Bahadur Malla (Gothale) (1922–2010) and his
brother Vijaya Malla (1925–2001).9
In 1955, King Tribhuvan died and his eldest son Mahendra Bir Bikram
Shah Dev (r. 1955–1972) succeeded to the throne. King Mahendra was a poet
and patron of the arts who founded the Nepal Sahitya Kala Pratisthan in
1957 (later Rajkiya Pragya Pratisthan, Royal Nepal Academy; today Pragya
Pratisthan, Nepal Academy), and the Rastriya Naach Ghar in 1961 (Royal
National Theatre, today National Theatre), abetted by his wife, Queen Ratna.
Balkrishna Sama had lobbied for government institutions such as these to
cultivate, support, and disseminate the work of major artists. Early plays
performed at these government theatres include those by Balkrishna Sama,
Gopal Prasad Rimal, and the brothers Govinda Bahadur Malla (Gothale)
and Vijaya Malla.
8
Rimal’s one-act plays are Maya (1953) and Nepali Sanskriti (date unclear).
9
I am indebted to a number of online articles and obituaries for much of the information
on the Malla brothers, Gothale and Vijaya, available at http://nepalicreation.blogspot.
com/2010/12/gvinda-bahadur-gothale-stories-with-new.html (accessed on 9 October
2016) and http://bossnepal.com/widely-read-writer-nepal/ (accessed on 9 October 2016).
The Malla brothers were born to a literary father who founded, edited,
published, and wrote for Sarada, one of the most important journals of the Rana
resistance movement. Their home was an epicentre for nationalist and pro-
democracy writers with anti-Rana sentiments. At a young age, Govinda began
writing anti-Rana tracts, resulting in his arrest in 1940. An editor at Sarada,
wanting to publish one of Govinda’s short stories that were contemptuous of
the Ranas, while also protecting him from further persecution, published his
piece Usko Bhaale (His Rooster) under the pen name Gothale (cow herder).
This name, and the defiance for which it stood, came to be the name by which
Govinda was known and under which he continued to write.
Gopal Prasad Rimal’s work was a major influence on the dramaturgy of
the Malla brothers—both brothers demonstrate interests similar to Rimal’s in
portraying social issues realistically, both explore the psychological damage of
living in the restrictive patriarchal society of rigid Rana oppression, and both
put women at the centre of their plays. Gothale’s modernity manifests in the
social realism of his plays—Bhusko Aago (Fire in the Chaff, 1956), Chiyatieko
Parda (Torn Curtain, 1959), and Dosh Kasaiko Chaina (No One is to Be
Blamed—published in 1970 but written in the 1960s). In the earliest of these,
Bhusko Aago, Gothale presents the story of Urmila, a young married woman in
love with her husband, but rejected by her in-laws, and not permitted in their
home. Urmila determines to use her ostracization and forced independence
to gain an education. Her in-laws force her husband to remarry although he
remains emotionally faithful to Urmila and seeks closeness with her. Ultimately,
with the choice hers, Urmila decides to continue her education and sacrifice
love (Pradhan, 1984: 188). In Chiyatieko Parda, Gothale again gives a young
woman a choice, this time between two suitors: a wealthy, already married
man, attracted to her beauty, and for whom she would be wife number two,
and a man impoverished by his addictions to alcohol and gambling, but who
genuinely loves her and respects her personal freedom. In both plays, Gothale
advocates female individuality and freedom of choice, and argues against the
traditions of arranged marriage, in-law supremacy, feminine subservience,
and female illiteracy.
Both Gothale and Vijaya Malla focus on the desire of the individual for
self-expression, especially in their female characters. While Gothale’s primary
concern is the relationship between women and society, younger brother Vijaya
focuses more on personal psychology. Notable among Vijaya’s plays is Kohi
Kina Barbad Hos (Why Should Anyone Be Destroyed, 1959). In this play, a school
headmaster studies psychology books to find a way to change the behaviour
of a destructive student. Theorizing that the boy is acting out of anger at the
lack of a mother’s love, the headmaster persuades Kamala, an unmarried female

teacher, to pass herself off as the boy’s long-absent mother. Kamala gives the
boy attention and care for his seven years at school, eventually growing to
love him as her own. Kamala even turns down a marriage proposal to stay
with the boy during his formative years, thereby saving him from becoming
a maladjusted menace, according to the psychological theories that interested
the playwright. When the boy turns 15, his father tells him the truth about
his mother. The boy abruptly departs the school with his father, without so
much as a word to Kamala.
None of the other characters care that Kamala was pressured into the
relationship or that she sacrificed her future to the ‘healthy’ development of
this boy. Clearly, the life and happiness of the woman are of less value than
the life and happiness of the boy. Kamala and her self-sacrifice are at the
centre of the play, although her independence as a woman has no place in
the story. Vijaya Malla was clearly influenced by the new field of psychology
and wanted to explore the headmaster’s ability to influence lives through its
use and to see on others the ramification of that exercise. Subedi writes that
Vijaya Malla’s plays ‘address women’s problems, but the women get lost into
the maze of the male-centric hegemony that the playwright uses’ (Subedi,
2006: 133). He further suggests that, although these writers were exploring a
new type of social consciousness, their plays reveal a lack of awareness that
they were writing from the vantage of the imbedded male hegemony. In the
preface to her translation of Masan, Sangita Rayamajhi writes, ‘I felt all these
playwrights [primarily Rimal and Malla] with their “problem plays”, were not
seeking new experimental forms of drama, but were experimenting with the
same themes of female oppression’ (Rayamajhi, 2006: Preface). Yet female
oppression was a new theme to be explored in modern drama, as opposed to
the more classical valorization of male heroes with few females in focus. The
Malla brothers centrally placed female characters moved Nepali audiences
closer to scrutinizing women’s roles in the home and in society.
Vijaya’s other great play, Pattharako Katha (The Stones’ Story, 1968), has a
surrealistic tone, and is set in the underworld. Although Vijaya broke the ‘rules
of realism’ (Subedi, 2006: 97) he, Gothale, Rimal, and other young writers
working from about 1945 to 1970 were ‘regarded as social realists, delineators of
psychological modes in characters and above all the initiators of the so-called
new social consciousness in literature’ (ibid.: 127). 10
10
Vijaya Malla’s other plays include Jiudo Lash (Living Corpse, 1960), Bahulakajiko Sapana
(Dreams of Bahulakaji, 1971), Bholi Ke Huncha (Tomorrow What Will Happen? 1971),
Two other prominent writers working in the 1970s, who display social
consciousness in their drama but in ways different from the Mallas and Rimal,
were Satya Mohan Joshi (b. 1920)11 and Man Bahadur Mukhia (b. 1947). Joshi
studied at Durbar High School and Tri Chandra College, where he was
especially taken with the writings of Tennyson, Wordsworth, Kalidasa, and
Percy Bysshe Shelley. However, while travelling to the eastern part of Nepal,
Joshi discovered the richness in rural folk songs and began collecting them,
eventually also collecting folk stories and folk music. Joshi felt the stories and
songs were as full of poetry and music as were the poetry and words of the
masters he had studied in college. In the process of printing his discoveries,
Joshi met Gopal Prasad Rimal who ‘who played a vital role’ (Joshi, 2012) in his
development by encouraging him to treasure the folk culture, the stories, songs,
and lifestyle of Nepal’s rural population. Joshi’s book, Hamro Lok Sanskriti
(Our Folk Culture, 1956) was awarded the Madan Puraskar (considered the
most prestigious literature award in Nepal), Joshi’s first of three of these highly
coveted awards.12
Echoing Sama’s regard for elevating local culture, Joshi helped to establish
a number of institutions aimed at preserving Nepali culture. In 1959, Joshi was
made the first director of the Archeological and Cultural Department of the
Royal Nepal Academy, and was instrumental in establishing the Rastriya Naach
Ghar (the Royal National Theatre) in Kathmandu, the Archeological Garden
in nearby Patan, the Archeological Museum in Taulihawa, and the National
Painting Museum in Bhaktapur. In 1960, the political situation changed and
Joshi was relieved of his duties at the government cultural institutions. Joshi
self-exiled to China. There he investigated the work of Arniko, the foremost
artist among the delegation of Newar artists who had travelled to Tibet to
Smritiko Parkhalbhitra (Inside Memory’s Wall, 1983), and Mani ra Mukhundo (Money
and Masks, 1983).
11
Some of the information on Satya Mohan Joshi is gleaned from a number of online
articles; other information is taken from a personal interview between Joshi and the
author’s assistant, Devendra Ali on 31 July 2012.
12
Joshi also received the Madan Puraskar for Nepali Rastriya Mudra (The Coinage of
Nepal, 1957) and Karnali Lok Sanskriti (The Folk Culture of [the far-western zone of]
Karnali, 1971). Joshi’s plays include Sipahi ra Raiti (Sipahi and Raiti, 1970), Dailako Batti
(Daila’s Light, 1971), Pharkera Herda (Look Back, 1976), Jaba Gham Lagchha (When the
Sun Shines, 1978), Mrituyu Ek Prashna (A Question of Death, 1984), and Baghbhairav
(Tiger Shiva, 2005).
work on the Sakya monastery in the thirteenth century.13 Upon his return to
Nepal five years later, Joshi founded the Arniko White Museum.
Although the plays of Rimal and the Malla brothers were eventually
produced in the large proscenium theatre of the Royal Nepal Academy and
at the smaller proscenium Royal National Theatre with noteworthy actors
such as Hari Prasad Rimal in leading roles, popular film had come to Nepal
in the 1960s and began stealing theatre’s audiences. When plays were offered
free of charge, the Academy attracted audiences, but when a ticket system was
initiated, audiences fell off. A solution to this problem was to stage the play Ani
Deurali Runcha (The Weeping Mountains, 1975) by Man Bahadur Mukhia14
and to bring the Sahitya Sammelan Group from Darjeeling to perform it. This
play ‘captured the plight and oppression of the people caught in the cycle of
debt in late nineteenth century Nepal’ (Golay, 2009: 85). Ani Deurali Runcha
proved to be a huge success, with audiences lining up for hours to purchase
tickets; even ‘King Birendra liked the play very much’ (Joshi, 2012).
Emboldened by the success of this production, Joshi brought his love of
folk culture to the writing of his folk-style play, Pharkera Herda (Look Back,
1976). Depending heavily on colloquial expression, Joshi’s play admonishes
audiences to maintain the integrity of their cultural identity by remembering
the past and not being seduced by the trappings of modern life. Joshi describes
the message of the play in this way:
Don’t always look toward your future, or what’s happening ahead of you, only.
Look back, also, to your past life. If you don’t look back you will lose your
identity. You will be busy having fun and enjoying life, but you must look
back and see how hard life was, and remember the pain of past experiences.
(Joshi, 2012)
Pharkera Herda proved popular with audiences and a financial success for
the Academy, playing for more than two months and breaking all box-office
records before it. The production then toured to the Nepali cities of Dhankuta,
Dharan, Biratnagar, and Birgunj.
The plays that most characterize the 1970s in Kathmandu are those that
were produced in the government funded theatre spaces, which also became
13
For more on Arniko, see Chapter 1 of this book.
14
The plays of Man Bahadur Mukhia include: Ani Deurali Runcha (The Weeping
Mountains, 1975), Pheri Itihas Doharincha (Answer Again, 1976), and Crossma Tangieko
Jindagi (Life Hanging on a Cross, 1977).
a means of disseminating nationalism as viewed by the ruling power. Plays

containing messages of dissatisfaction or urging change in the government did
not make it past the censors and were not permitted use of government theatres.
Thus, the government theatres became centres for ‘performances that would
please its patron’ (Subedi, 2006b: 52), just as the Royal Opera Houses had been
used in the palaces of the recent past to spout Rana dogma and entertain the
elite alone. The government sponsored theatres limited artistic development
by eliminating divergent views. But all this would change with the advent of
politically assertive theatre.

Modernisms Advance Postsama Dramatists 2019

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Modernisms Advance Postsama Dramatists 2019

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Modernisms Advance Postsama Dramatists 2019

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter 4

lack of a mother’s love, the headmaster persuades Kamala, an unmarried female

a means of disseminating nationalism as viewed by the ruling power. Plays

You might also like