Question- Comment on the significance of the role of the Actor Manager in "The Fire and the Rain'.

Answer - 

The Actor - Manager first appears in the prolague where he tells of the importance of staging dramatic performance while a fire-sacrifice is on. He also tells of the origin of drama and actors. Since actors are considered low- born and social outcastes, he stands out side the sacrificial enclosure and shouts out his lines to the king and the priests stressing the need for having a play during the fire sacrifice.

"Sirs, as is well known to you. Brahma, the lord of all creation entracted the requisite elements from the four vedas and combined them into a fifth veda and thus gave birth to the art of Drama. He handed it over to his son. Lord Indra, the Lord of the skies. Lord Indra, in turned, passed on the art to Bharata, a human being, for the gods cannot indulge in prentence. So if Indra is to be pleased and bring and end to this long drought which ravages our land a fire sacrifice is not enough. A play has to be performed along with it if we offer him entertainment in additior to the oblations, the god may grant us the rains we're praying for".

Actors as outcastes: The king, after consulting the chief Paravasu, agrees. But the Actor- Manager's problem is that he doesn't have enough of a cost to enact the play. So he seeks Paravasu's permission to allow his younger brother Arvasu to participate in the performance. He reads out Arvasu's message:

"Dear elder brother, you once said to me: "The sons of Bharata were the first actors in the history of theatre. They were Brahmins, but lost their cast because of their profession. Acurse plunged them into disrepute and disgrace. If one values one's high birth, one should not touch this profession. And I accepted this. But today I am a criminal. I have killed my father, a noble brahmin. I already stands trainshed. I may now become an actor. This follows from your own words." So please do not bar my way now.

When Paravasu is asked by the king whether they should allow a condemned criminal in the vicinity of sacrificial fires, he quietly replies, "Perhaps this sacrifice needs danger" and give the go-ahead for the performance to be staged. when reminded that Paravasu once called his brother a "demon" and drove him away from the sacrifice, he replies :

"Perhaps you can't keep demons aways from the sacrifice. It's a bond we can't break. Let have the play. we shall all watch".

Arvasu is happy Perhaps after the play he can start his life a fresh with his lady love, Nittilai, the simple and innocent hunter girl. He recalls the past when Nittilai and he were happy in love and he was to meet the elders of her tribe to seek her hand in marrige. But that was not to be.

Yavakri's death delays him from attending the meeting of the elders of her tribe and her father decides in a huff to marry her off to an eligible yound man of her own tribe. But when is betrayed by Paravasu and accused of killing their father a crime committed by Paravasu himself, he is thrashed by the brahmins and the soldiers, dragged and pushed out of the sacrificial enclosure and left half-dead in the burial ground where he is discovered by the Actor Manager. Hearing of his plight, the just married Nittilai deserts her husbands and her famliy, comes to the jungle and nurses him back to health. She also saves the Actor Manger's famliy from starvation and treats his brother's infected foot with herbs. This earns the Actor manager's gratitude. He tells Arvasu :

"I don't know what your are to her. Not that I want to know. Any fool can see you two belong to different worlds. Anything's possible in these troubled times. So I won't comment. But your name's on every tongue in this town and they are mostly trying to spit it out. I didn't save your life. She did. I only found you. You were lucky that she turned up soon after and it's she who's been nursing you. Mopping up your vomit, wiping your bottom. Like a baby, I'm grateful to her because my babies were starving when she came and now they get a bite to eat every day. Where she gets the food from I don't know but she knows the woods. We would have moved out of this town the day the old man died, except that we've become dependent on her. For good. For nursing. For laughter. We're just waiting to leave with her but she won't budge till you're better ......... something about you worries me. She's a good girl. Do't hurt her."

Arvasu promises but he is intrigued why the actors bury their dead, and not cremate them. The Actor-Manager explains :

"The earth gave us the body. When we are done, we hand over the job to our children and hand back the body to the earth .........., To burn is to destroy. Neither the earth gets it. Nor the wind. Well, to each his beliefs!"

As a Catalyst: Since Nittilai is being hunted down by her brother and her husband for bringing disgrace and dishonour to them by running away immediately after her marriage and she can't leave with Arvasu to start life anew, it is the Actor-Manager who persuades Arvasu to act as Vritra in the play. "The Triumph of Lord Indra', being staged at the end of the fire sacrifice. Nittilai disappears in the jungle. In order to be "visible" Arvasu rehearses for the play in the open. The Actor-Manager however, cautions him before he can put on the costome and mask of Vritra :

"Here, this is the mask of Vritra the demon. Now surrender to the mask surrender and pour life into it. But remember, once you bring a mask to life you have to keep a tight control over it, otherwise it'll try to take over. it'll begin to dictate terms to you and you must never let that happen. Prostrate yourself before it. Pray to it. Enter it. Then control it.

But in his enthuthiasm and the applause his performance elicits from the audience, Arvasu is unable to do so. Indra's betrayal of his brother reminds him of his own betrayal by his elder brother Paravasu and he creates havoc in the sacrificial enclosure till Nittilai appears and rips off the mask from his face. This is how the Actor-Manager acts as a catalyst for Arvasu to purge his emotions of fear and revenge against Paravasu.

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