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Strap: Not many know that Ebrahim Alkazi, the doyen of Indian theatre, was also an artist who dealt with metaphors derived from literature

Amit Sengupta

Opening Lines is a rare show of art works in multimedia by the doyen of Indian theatre Ebrahim Alkazi. One of the founders of the National School of Drama and mentor of great actors such as Uttara Baokar, Naseeruddin Shah and Rohini Hattangadi, very few know that he was a great artist who drew a variety of metaphors derived from historical masterpieces and classical literature.

Buried in his trunk, these were drawn when he was in his 20s and 30s and much later, and have been showcased in eminent art galleries in Bombay and London in the recent times. Discovered by his daughter Amal Allana, another famous theatre personality, she asked art curator and culture historian Ranjit Hoskote to curate the art show. And he has done a brilliant job.

The show was on at Triveni Kala Sangam in New Delhi recently and would travel to other cities and galleries in the days to come. Says Hoskote: “Alkazi has always believed in a continuum of the arts. This is why, even as he developed a rigorous theatre training programme at the Theatre Group, Theatre Unit, and the Bhulabhai Institute in Bombay during the 1950s, he was also lecturing on modern art and organising exhibitions like ‘This is Modern Art’, a survey of the key movements within this rubric. In his works of the late 1940s and early 1950s, we see very substantially the presence of TS Eliot and Nissim Ezekiel’s poetry, James Joyce’s Ulysses, and Shakespeare’s plays. The works do not merely illustrate these literary works, they engage with them, draw them out, focus on specific moments of crisis or dilemma or transfiguration.”

Some of the drawings are bare and minimalistic, so bare that it takes a moment to understand the nuanced language of the painting. Some of the sketches are chiseled but rough, like slow and steady etches, repeated as if in continuous slow motion, but with a movement and a trajectory.

Significant is the painting called the ‘Reclining Christ’, where Jesus Christ seems to have been crucified and waiting for the resurrection. Drawn in black etchings, is he really waiting for his resurrection or is he really dead? In this sadness of a certain fate of his ‘death’ or ‘killing’, Christ is all too human, as vulnerable and fragile as he can be.

Explains Hoskote: I see ‘Reclining Jesus’ in relation to the compelling presence of Christ throughout Alkazi’s oeuvre. Remember that he was the alumnus of two major Jesuit institutions, St Vincent’s School in Poona and St Xavier’s College in Bombay. In his work of the 1960s, he focused on the Crucifixion as well as the baptism and the entombment of Christ. The reclining figure of Christ is, in fact, a version of the deposition — after the body of Jesus is taken down from the cross and prepared for burial. It is a melancholy moment, between the sacred drama of the Crucifixion and the sacred mystery of the Resurrection.

‘Ophelia’ belongs to a series of drawings on the ‘Hamlet’ theme, in which Alkazi uses a minimal, electric line to invoke the Prince of Denmark, his ill-starred lover Ophelia, and his complex mother, Queen Gertrude. In this minimal evocation of Ophelia, we see prefigured the derangement that overtakes her, following Hamlet’s unpredictable behaviour, and her sad end in the water. In art as in theatre, Alkazi moved through a sequence of haunting, memorable images — to be seen as a series on paper, and as a chain of gestures and movements on stage, says Hoskote.

Indeed, the blind man too is dark and tragic. Drawn with black etchings, the sketch comes out of canvas like a foreboding, as if life has turned a full circle and there is no hope. There is a lingering despair in the black etchings, which becomes deeper as the face acquires character and resilience, a life story full of static tragedy, in continuous infinity, as if there is no relief.

“Alkazi has always believed in a continuum of the arts. This is why, even as he developed a rigorous theatre training programme at the Theatre Group, Theatre Unit, and the Bhulabhai Institute in Bombay during the 1950s, he was also lecturing on modern art and organising exhibitions like ‘This is Modern Art’, a survey of the key movements within this rubric. In his works of the late 1940s and early 1950s, we see very substantially the presence of T S Eliot and Nissim Ezekiel’s poetry, James Joyce’s Ulysses, and Shakespeare’s plays. The works do not merely illustrate these literary works – they engage with them, draw them out, focus on specific moments of crisis or dilemma or transfiguration, says Hoskote.

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Illustrious repertoire

Alkazi has directed some of the greatest and most legendary plays in Indian classical theatre, often adapted from great classics in Indian literature, and often showcased in the backdrop of Delhi’s magnificent Purana Qila built by Sher Shah Suri. His plays include Andha Yug by Satyadev Dubey, Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq and Mohan Rakesh’s Ashaadh Ka Ek Din.