Is there one Indian method of acting?

Training actors is now a small-scale industry in India. In many places in the country, it’s emerging as a small-scale racket, unfortunately. The number of people showing interest in learning the craft is high. With a rise in content creation, there is an increase in opportunities for trained actors. Even actors working mainly in theatre are considerably getting better opportunities. Besides trained and professional actors, thousands of amateurs and non-actors are also part of the industry ecosystem today.

A new edition of the book ‘Indian Method in Acting’  authored by eminent theatre practitioner and socio-cultural activist Prasanna, published in 2013 was re-published last month. In its new introduction Prasanna says, this book is for ‘actors of all hues, professionals, semi-professionals, and television actors’. The book makes a sincere attempt to engage with the craft of acting and theatre and has succeeded to a certain level. 

There are several misconceptions about acting in the name of “method acting,” ‘becoming the character’ etc. The book dismantles many wrong notions about acting and gets into the fundamental technicalities. Through multiple insights that come from decades of practice, the writer tries to make the reader or the practitioner understand the basic mechanisms of acting like engineering. He sees ‘action’ as a core ingredient for an actor. To elaborate on the philosophical and practical aspects of the ideas, ‘action’ and ‘dramatic action’,  he draws on the idiom of ‘angika’ from the ancient Sanskrit text ‘Natyashastra’. 

Through the chapter on ‘angika’ particularly, one can say that the writer presents the core argument of the book. He delivers an insightful understanding about the idea of gesture and presents serious arguments on observing, finding, defining and constructing gestures. He rightly advises actors not to forget the inherent playfulness and ‘falsehood’ of theatre. In subsequent chapters, the book talks about posture, stance, movement, tempo, motivation, voice, speech, diction, and stillness. The writer takes an idiom, an idea, or a situation for each chapter and unfolds it to the reader in detail, both technically and philosophically. 

The writer’s technical aspects of the subject are precise and thoughtful but philosophical and sociocultural aspects are highly problematic. A noticeable effort can be seen to prove that Western acting methods guide actors in the wrong direction while the Indian method is simple, logical, and accessible. The idea of ‘satva’, ‘sasa’ and ‘bhava’ characterisation is discussed in detail in the context of Natyashastra. He derives his ‘Indian Method in Acting’ in the backdrop of Natyashastra. Although he refers to folk traditional performances to understand certain things (like comedy) he later tries to connect folk performances and traditional principles to a classical aesthetic narrative. 

There is a lot of subtle intellectual appropriation in the book. The writer makes very selective and limited choices of examples mostly from the religious sphere. When we are looking at theatre as a secular medium of art, why should one learn acting from religious metaphors in contemporary times? Throughout the book, the examples mentioned are culturally specific. Would these references and examples work for actors coming from diverse sociocultural backgrounds? The writer proposes a codified pedagogy on acting and theatre aesthetics that comes from a Brahmanical philosophical lens. Here ‘Indian’ is merely a synonym for an accepted Brahmanical aesthetic and philosophy. Nowhere in the book does the writer say this could be just one approach.

There are multiple approaches to acting. Prasanna’s approach precludes the possibility of discovering and articulating and furthering many methods from this diverse land called India. Another major drawback of the book is that there is not enough focus on the imagination and the individuality of the actors. The book talks about the body a lot and does not pay enough attention to the preparation of the body and the voice.

Considering the widely-known information available for acting enthusiasts today, why do they have to stick to one particular method? The book only talks about the fundamentals of acting, and since it was written a decade ago, the field of teaching and training the craft of acting has further evolved. People are approaching the craft from multiple methods. 

Since the book doesn’t really talk to all the actors that it seeks to address, the name of the book looks like a gimmick. Like how ‘Brahmin Cafe’ is a brand, ‘Indian Method in Acting’ looks like a selling point. 

(The author is a well-known theatre practitioner, and has recently directed the Kannada play ‘Bob Marley from Kodihalli’)