Theatre review: Battlefield

SINGAPORE — Much of the hype surrounding English director Peter Brook’s new play, Battlefield, has to do with the past. It revisits part of The Mahahbharata, the Indian epic that he previously turned into a nine-hour production 30 years ago (which consequently sealed his status as one of Western theatre’s all-time greats).

But what makes Battlefield so potent is its place in the immediate present. The story of the victorious Yudhishthira and members of his family — who are all burdened by guilt and figuring out how to cope in the aftermath of the epic’s climactic war — is proof that the power of theatre does not rest solely on the universality of art in a bubble but also in its timeliness and the context in which it is seen and experienced.

However coincidental it seems, there’s no unfortunate context more apt than the very recent tragedies in Paris, Beirut and Syria. There were other uncanny elements at work, too: The touring production, co-commissioned by Singapore Repertory Theatre, had debuted in Paris only last month in a theatre not so dissimilar to the Bataclan (and even our own Capitol Theatre, where it’s staged now).

In Brook’s and co-director Marie-Helene Estienne’s programme message, they bring up Syria and world leaders such as Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Francois Hollande. (If you want to take it further, its first show in Singapore was held on a night when our Lions football squad took on the Syrian team.).

Descriptions of a battlefield covered with body parts, someone despairingly wondering “who could foresee such massive destruction”, and aphorisms about how no bad man is entirely bad (and vice versa) — all of a sudden, these carry a weight beyond a mythic story.

That it was presented in an acutely simple way, a calm and measured storytelling more than anything else (something the 90-year-old Brook has been doing in recent years), also contrasted with the emotionally charged discussions taking place on media and social media.

Against a blood-red backdrop, four actors and a drummer enact a post-war soul searching, traumatised and dealing with the high cost of war where two sides seemingly had more in common than everyone thought. In this minimalist environment where a piece of cloth becomes a raging river or a pile of gold or a snake, fables are told.

At the heart of everything is the notion of destiny and human nature: “It has happened before and it will happen again, and again” goes one line. Admittedly, it was a view I railed against during the Singapore Arts Festival in 2010, when Brook presented 11 And 12, a production espousing the values of tolerance. Back then, I regarded that work as completely out of touch with reality, with no room for human agency.

However, the immediate chaos that surrounds Battlefield makes its call for introspection and “inner peace” resonate all too strongly, tinged as it is with profound sadness. But Battlefield is also aware of its limitation as theatre: In one light-hearted fable, a mongoose gives out blankets to the audience, urging us to give these to the poor; a simple reminder of the connection of theatre with the people who watch it, and the latter’s connection, too, with the real world outside. The struggle for peace is, in Battlefield, both a personal and a social one. MAYO MARTIN

Battlefield runs until Saturday (Nov 21) at Capitol Theatre. Tickets from SISTIC.