The main play is preceded by preliminaries.

The musicians sitting on opposite sides of the asar start with a classical evening melody - shyam kalyan, Bihag, or poorbi. This orchestral piece, longer than the one that follows, is the "first concert." After a few minutes the musicians start the "second concert," a light, tripping melody which warns the actors and the audience that the play is about to begin.  A quick musical flourish ends the concert, and a group of boys dressed like girls streams in from the gangway and begins to dance.  If the actors are still busy making up, the group dance is followed by a solo dance. (Photo : The actor playing the Demon in Bhuler Mashool has painted teeth on his upper lip)

After this comes an episode from the life of Krishna, or Shiva or the Goddess Durga.  A popular pattern is following.  a demon worshipping Shiva sits in yogic meditation.  Shiva is pleased and grants a boon.  The power-drunk Demon gets up to destroy the world, including Shiva himself.  Many gods come one by one to defeat the Demon, but he is unconquerable.  Ultimately the goddess Durga appears and kills the Demon.  The fight ends in a tableau.  Durga, with her ten hands, her gory tongue sticking out, stands triumphant astride her tiger.  The other gods freeze into a silent action picture.

This piece includes acrobatics, sword fighting, wrestling, and feats of jumping and tumbling.  It serves as a ritual of the triumph of Good over Evil and blesses the players and the spectators.

In earlier times the stage was at ground level.  Slowly it developed into a two-and-a half-foot-high raised platform so that the squatting masses could see the arena and the foot movements.  The actors speak rapidly.  There is seldom need for prompting, but a prompter sits on the ground on one edge of the arena and in between the long dialogues he whispers a word here and there.  He is a safety net.  In his large hand-written manuscript songs are generally inscribed in Indian red, the names of the dramatic characters in bold vermilion, and the text in blue ink.

The play always starts with a climax.  At the time when the audience may be bored by the long preliminaries, the boys scrambling for a good seat, and women gossiping, it takes a powerful stroke to alert them.

A Puranic play might start with the entry of a demon holding a dripping head.  The historical Samrat Zahandarshah ("The Emperor Zahandarshah") opens with a firing of a gun.  Bargi Elo Deshe ("The Maratha Invasion of Bengal") begins with the invaders looting the people.  Neel Kothi ("The Oppression of Indigo Planters") opens with the plantation owners whipping the farm laborers.  Banglar Bodhu ("The Bride of Bengal") starts with two groups quarreling over a disputed land.  The Jatra playwright knows that the people must be dazzled, struck, shocked by a big event in the opening and not slowly taken from a low pitch to a high.  The climatic beginning silences the murmuring crowd.

THE ACTOR

The Jatra actor has a sense of composition and speech delivery.  He is superbly aware of the four-sided audience and is sturdily graceful from all angels.  There is speed, action, flamboyance.

Sharp turns in mood, abrupt flares and sudden drops in pathos are underlined by the orchestra.  Drums clatter and thump and rumble.  The trumpeters blow, and the flute player weaves a tapestry of notes suiting the occasion.  Background music, which the Bengali films introduced in the thirties, has long been a specialty of Jatra.  The singing is always done by the actor and not by the musicians.  In this the Jatra differs from most folk theaters where the Swami or the Ranga or the Bhagavatha or the Ramayani sing the lines for the actor and sometimes repeat the song for him.  This is perhaps because in Yakshagana, Veedhi-natakam, and Tamasha the actors are required to do a great deal of dancing, which is at times so vigorous that they are out of breath and must be represented by the singing chorus.  They may also be engaged in abhinaya (expressive miming) which requires the singer to tell the story and comment.  In Jatra today, the function of the chorus or singing voices has been suspended.

Every actor does his own make-up.  In the dressing room - a thatched enclosure three times larger than the stage - the actors sit cross-legged in rows with their make-up boxes.  Glittering garments, silken saris, laced tunics, and wigs of many shapes and colors hang on the clothes line.  The figure of the patron god or goddess, generally Krishna or Durga, is present, lighted by a small earthen lamp fed by ghee.

The actors use white lead, amber grease, and lamp soot to give an oily sheen to the face.  Demons, brutal generals and villains have intricate designs.  Black stripes, crisscross lines, red streaks, and white knobs transform the actor into a fiendish character.  His exterior is so awesome that it seems to be unreal.  This gruesome unreality makes the spectator constantly consciousness of the presence of a theatrical reality.

The use of make-up is ingenious.  In the Navaranjan Opera Company the actor playing the Demon in the preliminaries of Bhuler Mashool ("Punishment for an error") snarls and gnashes his teeth during a sword fight.  His upper lip is painted with white teeth, and as he purses his lip and squints his eyes in pain, the painted lip looks like a set of teeth bared in a groan.  The Cobbler Saint in the Natta Company's Petiter Bhagwan ("God of the Fallen") is played by the young actor Swapan Kumar Mukherjee.  His spiked beard is a painted pattern of ink-black streaks.  This austere nonrealistic make-up achieves power, boldness and concentration.

The actors come from all classes - farmers, laborers, fishermen, clerks, peddlers, middle-class businessmen.  In this respect, Jatra is unlike the folk theater of Tamasha, Bhavai, Therukoothu, and Raslila, in which the profession of actor is hereditary and confined to special castes.

Traditionally, all roles have been played by male actors.  Some play young heroes, some vicious villains, some comic fools, some the Vivek (Conscience), and some specialize in female roles.  Recently some women have also joined the Jatra companies.

The tradition of having men play the parts of women is common in the Asian theater and commands respect.  The onnagata of Japan have evolved over three centuries a stage woman that is impossible for the best Japanese actress to replace.  In the Peking Opera, Dr Mei-lan Fang set the style of the graceful Chinese woman.  Thirty years ago Peking women went to see Mei-lan Fang to copy his female grace.  In India the leading male player of female roles during the twenties was Bal Gandharv, now eighty year old, who has been honored throughout Maharashtra for his services to the Marathi stage.  Jayashankar Sundari of the Gujarati stage was also highly praised as a female type.  Padmeshri Sthanam Narasimharao of Andhra was envied by women for his female charm and sex appeal.  Talking about his memorable role of Moghul Emperor Aurangazeb's daughter, who disguised myself as a prince, the natural thing for me would have been to be completely the young prince - easier for me since I am a man.  But no. I had to be three persons at the same time.  While playing the part of the handsome prince I retained the lyrical suppleness of princess to show that in reality this was the princess in disguise.  I had to be myself, the prince, and the princess."

The tradition resulted from the feudal social order in which women were kept in a lower place.  In Japan and China, up to the time of World War II, women were considered inferior to men.  Manu, the ancient supreme lawgiver of the Hindus, emphasized that a woman was never equal of man.  After the Muslims conquered India in the thirteenth century the position of women deteriorated further.  For centuries women have been cloistered and not allowed to appear on the stage, while the men who played female roles developed a highly stylized interpretation of women.  Today, although women are accepted in the theater, they find it difficult to adjust their own femaleness to the stylized "woman" of Jatra, and men are still the best "women" in Jatra. (Photo : Sunil Roy (Satadal Rani) playing the bewitching heroine in Bhuler Mashool)

Because of revolutionary social changes in the theater and films, the common man demands a woman actress to play the female roles; the urban middle class is completely taken over by the image of the glamorous actress.  The Jatra male "actress" must fight a hard battle, depending solely upon his mastery if the art if acting,  Many Jatra troupes now admit dancers, courtesans, and film extras, but none of these has become a star actress.  It is difficult for a woman's voice to reach a crowd of five thousand spectators, whereas the male "actress" is trained to speak in falsetto without sounding harsh.  In some Jatra companies there are mixed casts: of seven "female" players, three may be men and four women.  The leading lady, however, is always played by a male.  

The director-producer Surya Dutta of the Natta Company, a shriveled old man of eight-four, has spent sixty-six years in the Jatra.  Discussing the aesthetics of acting, he said: "It is no art if a woman plays a woman.  When we represent a lame or cross-eyed man onto the stage.  Theatrical enjoyment lies in the fact that an able-bodied man is limping and squinting.  The natural thing is not the natural thing on the stage.  When a man acts as a woman it is art!"

Hari Gopal Das, thirty-two, is the best emotional "actress." In the role of Debi, wife of the cobbler saint Ruidas in Petiter Bhagwan, he plays a victimized woman with voluptuous charm.  He has twenty years of experience behind his feminine grace and wifely pathos.  After watching the show I went into beards and thick make-up.  Hari Gopal Das was introduced to me.  He still looked the bewitching wife.  He held out his hand and I shook it, but when I wanted to embrace him, in appreciation of his art, I became embarrassed because he looked so stunningly feminine.

Most actors add the suffix Rani (graceful lady) to their name to distinguish themselves as female artist.  Subal Mahanta, a farmer of Midnapur who was a star "actress" twenty years ago, was known by his feminine name Subal Rani.  Shyamapade Chakravarty style himself Chhabi Rani, and Sunil Roy, who plays an amorous princess or a coquettish wife, is famous as Satadal Rani.  These actors do not grow their hair long or walk down the street with an affected gait.  Most of them are married and lead a completely normal family life.  When one sees them off the stage, it is difficult to believe in their transformation. (Photo : The cobbler saint Ruidas meets his long-absent wife Debi, played by actor Hari Gopal Das)

The most highly paid Jatra actor today is Phani Bhushan Motilal, popularly known as Chhota Phani (younger Phani).  He earns 3,300 rupees ($695) per month.  He started his career at twelve as a chorus dancer, appeared in the role of a singer-dancer, played female heroines, and later specialized in heroic roles.  Today, at sixty-two, he still plays the young hero.  His most famous roles are Siraj-Ud-Daula, the patriotic and last ruler of Bengal who was defeated by the British in 1757; Viswa (Bhishma), the epic hero of the Mahabharata who took a vow to remain celibate throughout his life; and Bharata, the half-brother of Rama who did not accept the throne when his mother had Rama banished for fourteen years.  Because Chhota Phani specializes in one type of role - the young, noble hero - many critics do not consider him a great actor, but within his narrow range he has tremendous power.  I would prefer seeing a traditional Jatra actor always playing the heroic youth or the old father or the bewitching queen just as I enjoy seeing the Kathakali master Krishna Nayar playing Keechaka, and Raman Kutty playing Hanuman - roles that require specialization and years of discipline.  Chhota Phani - a thin, bald sallow-skinned fellow - takes on height and weight the moment he enters the asar. His voice, his stance, his movements have a stunning appeal.  His popularity is tremendous.  If he is scheduled and does not appear in the show, even the peace-loving Bengalis may grow violent and resort to brickbatting, or may set the canopied arena on fire.  The audience did in fact burn an auditorium in Kakadip Village in 1963  when Phani did not turn up.

Starting life as an orphan, Chhota Phani strode to success.  He is known for his money-extracting habits (sometimes he is reported to have charged taxi fare after traveling by bus) and is a terror to the proprietors.  He is 100 percent professional.  He takes his breakfast at eleven in the morning, sleeps till seven, and wakes up only two hours before the show.  Oblivious to what is happening in the world, he is concerned with his role, his pay and his audience.  Out of spite the proprietors of Jatra troupes call him "the snake" (Phani means "snake). (The name Phani Bhushan means "one who wears the snake as an adornment," that is Shiva.)

Phani is a popular in the Jatra world.  Apart from the two leading Phanis, Bara and Chhota (Big and Small), there are at least ten more Phanis, all reasonably famous.  The one in the Natta Company is Phani Bhattacharya, who plays the Queen Mother in Petitier Bhagawan. 

Bara Phani Bhushan Bidyabinod, a versatile actor, is at home in many roles.  He can play with equal grace the young king, the old saint, the vicious landlord, the sly servant, or the noble father, and because of his versatility some people consider him the greatest Jatra actor.

Some famous Bengali actors started as amateur Jatra players.  Among them are Ahindra Chowdhury; the late Chhabi Biswas; the late Teenakauri Mukherjee; Jauhar Ganguli; the late Phani Roy, who alternated between the films and the Jatra; and the stage and film actor Nitish Mukherjee.  An actor who has once known the challenge, the openness, the vitality of the Jatra will always long to repeat the experience.

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