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MODULE 6: Scandal in Fairyland

BADAL SIRCAR is a veteran playwright and director who has pioneered an indigenous theatre of conscientization, a theatre (of) natural environment, physical acting, slogans and familar sounds, documentary material and sustained movement. to commercial purpose.
The Third Theatre, emerged from the profound dissatisfaction with the proscenium and what it represented to Sircar; a bourgeois, dreadfully verbose, physically and thematically disconnected theatre. This struggle for artistic integrity, which continues to trouble theatre practitioners today, took Sircar into slums, villages and fields. It became angrier and acquired anarchist edginess, but never lost the thing that it became and transformed, the thing that once Sircar discovered made him fiercer and propelled him towards the people he meant to bring his work to in the first place. Third Theatre later Free Theatre, a term Sircar was himself more comfortable with took over in the face of success.

In Scandal in Fairyland a street-smart newspaper boy vends the Daily Fairy Green which carries fresh news of the heroic Prince Thunderbolt, who is a champion at beheading ogres which threaten kingdoms. As the action unfolds we discover wheels within wheels, double-dealing and behind-the-scenes fixing. It all however ends happily in true fairytale fashion The short play Scandal in Fairyland is an adaptation of a Bengali short story for children by Premendra Mitra (1904-1988) with the same name Roop Kathar Kelenkari; although, Sircar in one of his interviews with Samik Bondyopadhyay says that it is never meant for the children. Really, the play is a serious comment on civil society and the function of public coercive apparatusmedia, "the weapon of the bourgeoisie". Scandal in Fairyland is a story about the plot made by a businessman cum editor of the Daily Fairy Green paper, Midas Speculatorotti, with an old ogre and a bachelor, Prince Thunderbolt. He exploits the advantage of ogre and the bachelorhood of the prince to make money. The paperboy who acts as Sutradhar narrates the story by reading out the captions; and the chorus representing common people discuss the news and comment on it. The play opens with the paperboy announcing the sensational headlines in Daily Fairy Green newspapers extra pullout about Prince Thunderbolt having fought repeatedly and killed seven ogres who were eating citizens for daily meals; having awarded half of the kingdoms and gold as equivalent value of the princess offered to him for marriage; and because every time he refused the hand of the princess, he naturally becomes the richest man in and around the fairyland. Its the eighth time when a deadly demon haunts another state of fairyland, Ironia; and the king expectedly invites Thunderbolt and promises half of his kingdom and daughter, Rose as reward for killing the demon. But this time, after his triumph over the demon, contrary to his earlier decision, he decides to be united with the "beautiful, educated and honey-voiced

princess" (Sircar: 2003:45p), Rose. At this news people celebrate, but the paper expresses its disappointment, and releases sensational news of Thunderbolts fake triumph over the demons. It publishes that though the ogre has been thought to be killed, theres no corpse found. The media manipulates the mob to demand for a public trial, and Thunderbolt is called to the court for the trial. In the court Thunderbolt calls the ogre as a witness. He is "elderly well dressed like gentleman" (ibid: 55). He reveals that he is a simple and illiterate ogre who is paid to haunt the people of the fairyland by some "crooked man". In the mean time, the people come to know that its none but Midas, the editor, who machinates to make money at the cost of the haunts, get thirty five percent of the princes reward. He has corrupted the Fairyland to such an extent that it no longer remains fairy Sircar does not want to tell a fairytale of king, prince and princess, but this drama is a "brilliant critique of media mechanism for making money and sensation" (ibid: viii). Sircar juxtaposes the fairytale elements of giant, prince, killing demon and marrying princes with a realistic hoax of modern society only to make us realize reality in its bare skeleton. We believe that media is the greatest power of democracy, but actually media is the repressive state apparatus which fosters only bourgeois status quo. It tampers the reality, creates the situation, thrusts the situation upon common people, frames opinion for people and makes money out of it. Sircar vandalizes the media to expose the scandal before us. If we divide the play into two separate movements, it would be easier to trace the nature of working of the apparatus. Before the wedding decision, we see how media fans the gallant win. Its captions carry the terms, superstar, brave knight who is beyond compare and freed the Copperland from fear; but actually, it is cashing out of the repeated threats and wins. In the opening the paperboy shouts in a "flamboyant American accent" (ibid: 41) only to sensationalize the news; and the four characters representing common people has but to go with the intoxication made by the mechanism. It is clear in the words of the paperboy: Paperboy . Hi there folks! I bet youre really thrown by all that fancy language --- right? Well, fairytale lingos got to be special ---to give the flavour of real fairytale, you know. Me, I dont understand what its all about, but I got to call out all that stuff like special Evening Edition ,and hot news, or else they leave without buying it (ibid: 44p). And in the shouting we can trace the masala that a media introduces to popularize its brand only to cash on it. Daily Fairy Green! Ogre threatens Ironia ---Demands one human a day King proclaims half the kingdom! and hand of Princess Rose---Beautiful, educated honey-voiced well versed in royal duties youll get

her picture in this Daily Fairy Green ! Extra! Extra!. Daily Fairy Green! (ibid: 45p). And in the second section of the movement, when the very trick boomerangs and threatens its interest, the media like chameleon changes its colour. Immediately after, as Thunderbolt breaks his vow of bachelorhood, the paper takes the stances against Thunderbolt. It persuades to detain the prince from marriage because marriage would mar the source of money. In the editorial the frustration is reflected: Prince Thunderbolt is getting married at last. It calls for rejoicing. But should not a man who chose the welfare of the nation as his cause be made of sterner stuff! If a prince and a hero of the distinction of Prince Thunderbolt stoops to place his personal comfort and happiness over consideration of nation and state , like just any Tom, Dick or Harry, can the nation expect anything more from him? (ibid: 49-50p) Gradually media grows aggressively anxious as the wedding day is nearing and as the prospect of the welfare of the institution is nearing to seize. It starts attack with, "Prince Thunderbolt sticks to his resolve" (ibid: 50) and arrives at the conclusion, "Prince Thunderbolt still lost in delusion" (ibid: 50); and ultimately takes the suicidal step in calling the public trial. In this case also media uses the common people to shout for the public trial. Sircars criticism of the civil society in Scandal in Fairyland focuses on the type of individual peculiar to it, the egoistic individual of a market society who always disturbs the harmony and unity. As the very name is suggestive, Midas is the representative of the bourgeoisie who uses the ogre and Thunderbolt to meet his individual interest. Even being invisible to them, he exploits the whole situation. Here the concept of power mechanism in its relation to interpellation is apparent. According to the Marxist ideologists, this kind of self seeking men are slave to their immediate egoistic cravings and respond in a mechanistic way to outward passion; so also, in this drama Midas is unable to realize what "consciousness" is. For Marx, this kind of animal existence is like abstract citizen in abstract state; and public coercive apparatus makes it more illusionary. This illusionary democratic state is not true democracy. In this drama, this state is revealed in the dramatists juxtaposition of the democratic elements (paper, public trial etc.) with monarchical setting. With his clever improvisation of giving Midas an exile from the fairyland to West Bengal, Sircar deliberately thrusts us into reality. While in Scandal in Fairyland, we are plunged bodily and emotionally into the hurly burly and chaos, in Beyond the Land of Hattamala, by replacing the society based on money and individualism, Sircar shows us the way of redemption. In Scandal, the objective reality is distorted by bourgeois political structure; but in Hattamala , we see that an illuminating objectivity being obtained when subjective selves merge with the greater reality. Scandal in Fairyland is a depiction of abstract civil society which is actually hattamala (land of hurly burly) in the next play where Kenaram and Becharam live and from where they are running away to

enter into space beyond, where theres no hoax, no hunger, no paperboy and no Midas. This society is the Marxists futuristic modern socialism.

TRIBUTE: A life on the fringe


Badal Sircar was the last of his ilk: a true radical who questioned everything in his own unfathomable quest for meaning and justice within theatre.

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