Ratan Thiyam, 77, a luminary of Indian theatre, passed away in Imphal early Wednesday after prolonged illness. He was more than a theatre director. He was a young man with a mission from the day he stepped into the National School of Drama with his eyes eagerly trained on his Guru, Ebrahim Alkazi, listening intently, with every fiber of his being, alert to what his Guru was trying to impart—the larger significance of making theatre , its intention….the seminal role theatre had to play in society through the refinement of the audience’s aesthetic sensibilities..which could only be possible by creating deeply relevant and meaningful art. With Alkazi’s ideas ringing in his ears, Ratan returned to Manipur because that was his base, that was the culture he knew and wished to build on and explore. Setting up the Chorus Repertory Company, Ratan gradually began to weave his understanding of the Natya Shastras, Manipur’s Meitei performing traditions and Thang-Ta, along with his understanding of modernity as it was evolving in the Indian context into a series of outstanding productions.Creating new texts based on myths, using trained Manipuri actors and martial artists Ratan as theatre director orchestrated music, movement, lighting and stagecraft into powerful choreographed images of compelling beauty and majestic power in productions like the Sanskrit classic Urubhangam and Chakravyuh (1984) and Ritusamharam, while his modern texts included AndhaYug and Antigone (1986). When Nissar Allana invited Ratan to direct an Ibsen play for the Delhi Ibsen Festival, Ratan took up the unusual challenge of doing Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken (2008) and recreating it into a lyrical and haunting production, practically surrealist in its imagery, several moments of which remain imprinted in the mind’s eye.
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