Mahesh Dattani's dramatic techniques

           Introduction

Drama is a powerful medium of communication to exhibit and explore human world in various dimensions. It is not simply constructed with the plot and characters. Intelligent stagecraft and dramatic techniques of a playwright convey many things beyond her/his words and actions. Mahesh Dattani is a brilliant dramatist and excellent stagecraft, who makes his audience to react to the elements on stage and script, and draws his spectators and readers to comprehend matter of life even in some lifeless properties on stage. Unless understanding his stagecraft and techniques, no one could comprehend his place in a right sentence. His stage direction, movement, settings, drama techniques are matters to understand his texts especially his plays Tara and Dance Like a Man. 

Dramatic Techniques in Dance Like a Man

Mahesh Dattani is considered as one of the most effective dramatic voices in Indian English dramatic world. Dance Like a Man is a play that highlights a woman's ambition and passion on traditional dance stimulates a man to fall in worsening circumstance. Dattani exhibits realistic event and circumstance of familial relationship in this play that they can be easily observed in the contemporary society. Ratna, Jairaj and Amrit Lal are major characters of this play. Dattani portrays the character Ratna, the most dominant woman in this play. The whole play browses in the ascendancy of Ratna to attain an awful position on dance and Dattani distinctly exhibit the mysterious twin of woman's approach through her incorrigible behaviour. Dattani makes use of flashback as one of his dramatic techniques which appears in the second part of the first act. It is for highlighting the disagreement exists between art and family. Ratna wants to continue the traditional dance so she makes her husband a victim for attaining her ambition. She plans to join her hands with her father-in-law, Amrit Lal, his determination to destroy Jairaj's passion on dance and career as a dancer. The construction of disagreement among the characters in different level of Indian society.

Dattani has built a substantial oeuvre which can today be viewed and weighed. The main characteristics of the author's method tend to be repeated, which variations, from work to work. He takes great pain in his stage directions to explain the stage layout expects the observers to fallow him in detail.

The constantly shifting nature of Dattani's stage space became the starting point for a kaleidoscopic approach to the text. In the play Dance Like a Man during the first flashback the actor who plays Jairaj immediately turns into Amrit Lal by simply wrapping the shawl, his most prized possession, around his shoulders. Dattani uses the shawl as a symbol to signify the stature of Amrit Lal. Through Vishwas, Dattani expresses the view of Amrit Lal and prepares the audience mentally that he is against the wish of his son, Jairaj.

Through the dialogues of Jairaj it is revealed that many years have passed and many changes have taken place. The ancient house is demolished and built a posh house. When Jairaj is revealing the changes that have taken place spotlight picks up the younger Jairaj and Ratna in the dance hall. Both of them were in dance costumes and wear dancing bells during Jairaj's speech. They smile a lot and perhaps even laugh. When the younger Jairaj strikes a pose the younger Ratna laughs and hits him playfully. The younger Jairaj and Ratna smile and embrace without any prejudices. After his death Jairaj express that they dance perfectly with unison without missing a step or a beat and they laughed at all the mistakes they made in their previous dances. They have come to an understanding Jairaj says " We were only humans. We lacked the grace. We lacked the brilliance. We lacked the magic to dance like God."

This is the statement of maturity, understanding and realization. At the other segment the younger couple is ready to dance and salute the audience while the music builds up and the spotlight fade. 

In this 'well made play' structure, Dattani bends time and space to suite his will. Throughout the play that time moves back and forth within the same scene. His ability to create meaningful and moving drama has established him as the leading figure in English Theatre today. He is the only Indian playwright with a consisted body of work in English.

To direct a play is a process of making the word flesh. When the words are Mahesh Dattani's, the flesh is already contained within the word; the written texts are fully realized through the process of performance. Dattani's plays fuse with the physical and spatial awareness of the Indian theatre with the textual rigour of Western models like Ibsen and Tennessee Williams. It's a potent combination, which shocks and disturbs through its accuracy, and its ability to approach a subject from multiple perspective.

Dattani says Theatre has always been a mirror for man, a reflection of his world, the eternal conflicts that plague him, through which he has experienced the gamut of human emotions. Man has created a very complex language called theatre, a language that has the ability to redefine the natural concepts of time, space and movement. A language that goes beyond the verbal and beyond the physical. Through his language of theatre he has been able to see himself for who he is, what he has made of himself and what he aspires to be.

          Conclusion

So, as we can see that to form our cultural identities we need all three- Tradition, continuity and change. It is when we accept the need for all three in our theatre that we can truly have a theatre movement that is inextricably linked to the development of cultural, social and individual identities. So, according to Dattani theatre is the representative of life.