One is often told that we live in an increasingly fragmented world. The truth of it comes to you quite vividly when you are watching a play these days. It is not uncommon even at special shows sponsored by upmarket brands for their users to see people in the audience streaming in and out, letting their little children play in the aisles and munching noisily on snacks all through the performance. The ambience at Mumbai’s Prithvi theatre does not allow for such indignities. Mobile phone users are peremptorily asked to switch off phones and the doors are shut once the play begins. Yet after attending its recently concluded festival in Mumbai I was struck by how many disturbances we still willingly allow to come between ourselves and the totality of an experience.On opening night, for instance, the swish crowd had to peek at the performers through a disturbingly mobile wall of press and television photographers. On other nights, however, it was more the audience that was responsible for the fragmentation, in ways that it was probably not even aware of through certain habits that have become so commonplace that we hardly even notice or question anymore.Take, for instance, this business about clapping through the show. In the old Bhangwadi kind of theatre it was part of the act mainly because the ambience was that of a complete tamasha with people throwing money on stage and demanding encores of favourite songs. But for the sort of theatre that had become more popular later on, one or two act performances which stressed more on dramatic narrative rather than music or dance or some types of experimental theatre, audiences mostly watched plays in respectful silence and clapped at the end, the enthusiasm levels depending, of course, on the quality of the production.These days, however, it has become customary to clap arbitrarily through the show. People will clap at a witty piece of writing perhaps, or a comic gesture, or a dialogue delivered with emotion or even a costume. Not little claps, but whole-hearted applause as if that little act was a play in itself and needed to be acknowledged. Now one cannot deny that there is a certain amount of appreciation evident in these gestures and possibly actors enjoy and feel encouraged by the response. On the other hand, the consequences for a play could be unfortunate. For one, it has the potential to turn a play into a series of items rather than an organically developing experience. There is also a possibility that performers could be tempted to do a bit of extra show-baazi — be individuals rather than team players. But more than anything else, it has the ability to disrupt the effect the playwright and the director may have intended to produce. It is extremely difficult to switch moods if one is constantly applauding or to appreciate a complex story line. Yet it seems to be a custom that’s here to stay.Another feature that seemed striking was also how at the end of the show one was likely to see and be introduced to all the players, even the boy who dusted a table and did nothing else or the third musician who plucked the odd string — but not the director. For some reason, even star directors who have their names on billboards and press advertisements rarely come out on stage at the end of a show to be duly applauded and appreciated. Is it another blow for fragmentation that the person whose vision wraps the package and makes it whole is to remain unseen while the parts become larger than life?And then, there is the matter of a standing ovation. It used to be a rare tribute. It was when a production was so overwhelming that it literally swept you off your feet (or rather on, in this case) that it was deemed to deserve a standing ovation. Today audiences stand and cheer avidly after every play, good, bad and indifferent. Often one even notices a certain reluctance in parts of the audience and then a slow joining in out of embarrassment making it a social custom and robbing it of its significance.Are people in theatre happy with these trends? Does it affect their work? Would they have it another way? One would wish for a dialogue but then where is the possibility of communication? Where are the critics who could provide the interface, the link between theatre and its audience? More important, where is the space in an increasingly trivialised media for such interaction? Do we stay, then, as fragments or do we find a way to buck the trend?
