The performance begins in dark and silence.  Slowly, very slowly - taking
more time than the opening chords of "Das Rhinegold" becoming audible in
that other primeval darkness - a Buddhist chant is heard, it grows in
breadth and volume, as a group of monks becomes visible in the dim light.
The chant grows, the light changes, there are strange, hypnotic movements,
and you get sucked into the scene, not caring much about what is being said
or what it the scene means.  It grabs you, surrounds you, takes you into a
world of its own, without regard to language or geography.

Scene follows visually, theatrically amazing scene until, at midpoint,
comes the breathtaking vision of the play's mid-point climax: in a
dream-like light, Asoka returns from battle, riding on an elephant,
flanked by banner-carrying warriors on horses.  What doesn't register
for the longest time is that there are no elephants or horses, this
painting-come-to-life is made of a few pieces of metal and cloth, a handful
of actors creating the illusion of a mighty army.  That's what you know,
afterward, but what you *see* is a stunning visual feast.

The procession, coming right at the audience, creating gasps, brings to
mind the indelible visual greatness of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle at his best,
the 1994 San Francisco "Macbeth," the Bayreuth Swiss-cheese "Parsifal,"
Svoboda's Paris centennial "Faust," scenes from Mnouchkine's film,
"Moliere," Alden's "Poppea," and so on.  Instances of "painting opera."

And one enormous difference.  All the examples mentioned here (and those
you'd care to add) involved large expenditures, sometimes in the millions
of dollars, and big, affluent organizations.  The spectacle unfolding in
Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall today comes from one of the poorest regions on
the face of the earth, and it's created by a man who is working the light
console himself, sans computers, sans stage crew, sans everything.

Ratan Thiyam created his Chorus Repertory Theater in Imphal, the capital of
India's Manipur state, tucked in somewhere Bhutan and Burma.  Besides great
poverty, the area is also characterized by devastating monsoons - Thiyam's
company was physically wiped out six times over the years - and political
violence and upheaval.  "Gunshots and bombs are the new music of the
Manipuri people," says Thiyam bitterly.  But here he is anyway, painting
glorious tapestries of music, light, and movement on par with opera and
theater companies of the largest budgets, and - most likely - well
sheltered from tropical storms and violent border disputes.  Robert Wilson,
eat your heart out.

The play at Cal Performances is "Uttar-Priyadarshi," the story of the
great emperor Ashoka (, who transformed himself from an instrument of
war into an advocate of Buddhism in second-century India.  (He became
known later in life as Priyadarshi, the title means "Asoka Beatified.)
Another unforgettable high point of the play is the grieving of war widows:
white-shrouded figures crawling in pools of light, moaning and crying
against the echoes of war chants.  It is a statement for peace at Ashoka's
time as well as in Thiyam's home, in the present.  So is the "Whirlpool
of Blood," and the grotesquely anachronistic scene of executions that
includes a guillotine and an electric chair.  But there is no preaching or
propaganda here, no self-important grand guignol, reaching for effect -
just spectacular theater, and visual memories to last a lifetime.

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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