Theatre fest begins with ‘Saudagar’ at Shaheed Bhavan

The Rang Vidushak Theatre Festival kicked off with the Hindi play ‘Saudagar’. The theatre fest began here from Wednesday at Shaheed Bhavan auditorium.

Adapted from the German play ‘Exception and the Rule’ by Bertolt Brecht, Saudagar was a direction of Bansi Kaul. The play was performed by the artists of Rang Vidushak theatre troupe, Bhopal. The play was adapted from Exception and the Rule and was translated into Hindi by Shrikant Kishore. Saudagar tells the story of class-warfare, where the elite are treated innocent and the lower class people at their worst. The play uses mimicry, acrobatics and much more to present the story on stage. There are three clowns, tilanga those who are the presenters and the spectators as well. In their own comic and sarcastic manner they present the story. The play tells the story of a rich merchant Jhabbu Lal, who must cross the fictional dessert to close a deal. During the trip the class differences between him and his working-class coolie Sunny are shown. As Sunny becomes increasingly afraid of the desert, the merchant's brutality increases and he feels terribly alone without police nearby to protect him. Eventually when the Merchant fires his guide, the coolie and the Merchant himself get lost and the water supplies are running low. The merchant mistakenly shoots the coolie, thinking he was being attacked, when he was in reality being offered some water the coolie still had left in his bottle.

Later, in a court room scene, the evidence of the murder is presented, and ultimately the Merchant is acquitted. The Judge concludes that the merchant had every right to fear a potential threat from the coolie and that he was justified in shooting the coolie in self-defense regardless of whether there was an actual threat, or whether the merchant simply felt threatened.

Brecht intends to show the coolie as a victim caught in the gears of the merciless logic of class warfare. The play, due to its investigation of class differences between rich and poor, with the poor 'losing out', can be seen as arguing in favor of Brecht's Marxist politics. Brecht wishes to protest against established rule, in which the working class is allegedly exploited, and bias us in a set of future rules.