‘You cannot kill my thoughts’: Deepan Sivaraman on how artistes in India do not question the system

Last year, Delhi-based director Deepan Sivaraman turned the iconic film, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, into a play. (Source: Vimeo.com)

The 1920 silent horror film, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, has a historic background of opposing authority. It was story written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, who were disillusioned after their experiences with the army during World War I. The film has a dark and twisted storyline, from its graphic landscapes, to the protagonists — a hynotist called Dr Caligari, who uses Cesare, a somnambulist, to kill people, and Francis, who has undergone a trauma and tells the story that makes up the film. Last year, Delhi-based director Deepan Sivaraman turned the iconic film into a play. He showed it in a warehouse and topped the story of insanity, illusion and murder through taps on stage gushing with blood (fake), and having people (real) hanging by rope from the rafters.

Of course, there were eerie sounds of footsteps on the roof. The director, whose Legends of Khasak, is one of the biggest productions of recent years, has tweaked The Cabinet of Dr Caligari to make a political statement about present-day politics. It was presented at Bharat Murali Theatre, Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi, Thrissur on October 13 and October 14. Edited excerpts from an interview:

Caligari Teaser from Prakash Bare on Vimeo.

What changes did you bring about to your play, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari?

I always felt the play already had the hint of a kind of fascism. Dr Caligari is like a fascist and Cesare, the somnambulist, is being forced to kill people on his orders. Francis, who opposes Dr Caligari, has his rationality questioned. At the end of the play, Francis is forced to go to a mental asylum, where he is given electric shocks. What we are doing now is finetuning the elements of fascism present in the play. We have not changed much. We have added a few more lines, to make the conflict more clear to public, about who Dr Caligari is and who is Francis.
In the last sequence, Francis withdraws into the audience and he is questioning from the audience, representing the public. He says, “You cannot put everybody into the madhouse. You cannot kill my thoughts.” These are the two lines we have given him. After Francis is dragged to the madhouse and has been given electric shocks, Caligari says to the audience: “Why do you people think that to have a free mind will make you free men. What is the matter? Why do you need freedom? Freedom is not absolute”.

Why did you make this change?

When society’s political situation has changed, you cannot stand still. In a field such as ours, ie theatre, or even in cinema or art, I don’t think we are doing enough. Artists have given back their awards but in the art-making itself, we do not deal with the political problems often enough. That is the reason theatre makers are all very safe. We are not a threat to the system. We make our traditional art works and make the system happy, in order to get awards. Many theatre artistes do not have a problem to share the podium with the culture minister. The problems happen when artists start to question, and put questions in the people’s minds. That is the reason Gauri Lankesh was killed, or a rationalit was killed. Perumal Murugam has to stop writing, until the court steps in.

You also focus on problematising the act of watching a play, for instance, by putting audiences on stage surrounding the action. What is your plan for the next production at Thrissur?

Almost 70 per cent of the features have been built for this play. For instance, we have built a wall. It is a semi-open air theatre. On one side is a stage and on the opssoite side is the gallery. What I did was to extend the existing stage towards the gallery so that it almost comes and hits the first audience seats. There is an interesting dynamics, that the audience is actually watching Dr Caligari’s show at the carnival. Alan is already sitting in the gallery with the audience. This makes people feel that they are already a part of the play. Incidentally, Alan is the first to be killed.